Carol Toole

About Carol

In the mid-’70s, the parents of a nursery cooperative in the spiritual community where Carol Toole lived asked her to be lead teacher. She was just 21, but they often noticed her in the doorway observing the children. Soon her quest to create an environment that fosters children’s innate sense of wonder led her to become a Waldorf kindergarten teacher. Later, she pursued training as an educational therapist, focusing on sensory development, dyslexia and written language instruction. A highlight of her many trainings was a semester at Hawkwood College in Stroud, England, studying practical applications of Rudolf Steiner’s teachings on human development.

During the past forty years, she has been a Waldorf teacher, storyteller, puppeteer, writer, and parent educator, creating a popular series called Creative Living with the Young Child. More recently, she has provided Academic Language Therapy, movement therapy, and strategic tutoring to grade-school children at the Austin Waldorf School. 

She is now mother to two grown children. As a grandmother, she was inspired to combine her parenting workshops, observations of children, and love for language at its inception to ponder the question, “What is this childhood?” This resulted in a book recently published by SteinerBooks.