Lead Petitioner

MELISSA NILSEN, Ph.D.

Melissa has been in the field of education for twenty years. She earned her BS in Elementary education in 2005 in St. Paul, Minnesota where she began her teaching career in public elementary schools. In 2011, she started volunteering and substitute teaching at the Minnesota Waldorf School where she fell in love with the philosophies of Waldorf education and anthroposophy. In 2013, she enrolled at The Great Lakes Waldorf Institute in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where she earned her master’s degree and Waldorf teaching certificate in 2015. In 2014, Melissa moved to San Diego to take her first Waldorf class as a lead teacher.

In 2015, she helped create a new method of leadership, The Steering Committee, at Sanderling Waldorf School and served on it for the next six years. In 2022, she defended her dissertation, Teaching with Higher Senses, a scholarly personal narrative about the critical importance of the student-teacher relationship and how the use of contemplative practices can support teachers in building equitable classrooms through cultivating inner compassion and understanding for each student.

In 2024, Melissa authored the book, To Guard and Cherish: Contemplative Practices for Waldorf Teachers, which makes the case that teachers and students thrive when the school community is held by emotionally balanced and mature teachers who cultivate a rich inner life through contemplative practices and self-development. Melissa believes that Waldorf education supports equity and inclusion by using teaching methods that meet the diverse needs of all students from all backgrounds. She also believes that compassionate teaching methods such as those integral to Waldorf education are the key to solving the mental health crisis and raising a generation of leaders who will mend social, political, and racial divides and bring about true and lasting positive change in the global community.