By: Tomas Bernales-Jabur

Dr. Julie King is the new Executive Director of the Rudolf Steiner School, stepping into a position critical to the growth and development of our community in an age of technological and social transition. However, the weight of these responsibilities could not be on more capable shoulders. Dr. King has a wealth of experience in digital education, having worked in several other educational environments, including New York City’s Buckley School.  

Stepping into the naturally lit office of Dr. King, I was immediately struck by the professionalism and neatness of the space, which somehow managed to retain a sense of welcome and comfort. As I would later learn, through my conversation with Dr. King, the office was very much like her own self. She emanates a sense of strength and direction, yet her eyes also hold a gleam of playfulness and amusement that is reflected in her smile and laugh.  

As the editor for 15 East, I had the privilege and pleasure to speak with her for a half an hour. Through my interview, I endeavored to paint a more complete picture of who Dr. King is. Although, we see the intimidating Dr. Julie King in school communications or walking through the halls, she also happens to be a mother, a jogger, a water skier and an avid reader of magical realism. I had the pleasure of speaking with someone who struggles with the tongue twister “Sally Sells Seashells,” who enjoys Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and who, just like many other students, hops on the crosstown bus every day to come to work at the Rudolf Steiner School. 

15 East: Beginning with more personal questions, what would you say defines you and what are your most marked characteristics?  

JK: I will say that I love a good challenge, and I think my colleagues and friends would consider me pretty determined. I get real joy in solving problems. I also just like being a good friend and I think that life is magic when you can put both of those things together. I’ve been fortunate to be surrounded by a lot of really good people in many places.  

15 East: Do you have any contemporary figures that you admire? Any personal heroes?  

JK: A personal hero of mine is a woman who is not famous. She is only famous to me. Dr. Vivian Forrester earned her PhD in cybersecurity. She grew up in Jamaica and came to the US. for school. She was the technology director at a local girls’ school and spent every bit of her free time traveling to other countries to work with schools. She was really committed to not just being incredibly talented as a woman and as a woman of color in a technical field. She worked at a girls’ school, and she passed away suddenly, a year and a half ago. I learned so much from her and aboud really giving back to make the world a better place for young girls.  I think about her all the time still and that is somebody I strive to be like.  

15 East: What are your favorite writers or books?  

JK: I really love Gabriel Garcia Marquez and magical realism. I was a history major as an  undergraduate, and I had to do so much nonfiction reading. I am also a librarian, so I really love to escape into a book, but only a really well-written book. 

15 East: Do you have any hobbies?  

JK: I do. I jog. I don’t say that I run, but I jog. I love to go for a run, just put my headphones in and get lost for a long time. For a long time, I boxed, because I find a lot of peace and meditation through movement. I would find that when I was doing boxing rounds, I was thinking so much about my technique or the rhythm of the round that it was actually helpful to me, which seems counterintuitive. I like to do really active things. I love to be outside and that is probably the one thing I’ve missed from my boarding school. We had like 500 acres and paddleboards and the river. Fortunately, we have Central Park close by.  

15 East: When you first got to Steiner, what were your first impressions?  

JK: Every single day I am impressed with the intelligence of this community. I sat down to lunch the other day and a student sat down next to me. I just had this random fifteen-minute conversation with a lower school student that was incredible, about the change of seasons. Every colleague that I speak with just elevates the conversation. Every conversation I have, I am reminded that it is really a privilege to be in this community of people who are such deep, critical and thoughtful thinkers. The other piece is just an unfailing generosity of spirit that I see with the parents. I see it in the students of all ages. I see it in my colleagues. Sometimes in New York, from time to time, you might encounter people who maybe are cynical or have a really sharp edge. I am trying to carefully measure my words because if you see me on the crosstown boss and I am late for work, don’t judge. On the whole, everyone here is very clearly striving to be the best version of themselves. And that that is really special, and what struck me from the get-go. And it wasn’t just an initial impression. I continue to see that every day.  

15 East: Could you tell us about what brought you back to New York?  

JK: My first job as an adult was for the New York Public Library. I worked for the Belmont Branch in the Bronx, which, if you don’t know, is a little Italy in the Bronx. I was there for one year and absolutely loved it. Then I moved to Washington, D.C. I knew I wanted to get back to New York. My brother and his family live in Brooklyn, so this is, in a way, home. I’ve got family here. I was working at a boarding school down south and a friend connected me with the job at Buckley eight years ago. I came back to New York for that, and it felt like a bit of a homecoming.  

15 East: You are coming to Steiner from a completely different school. How do you see yourself applying what you learned from your years at Buckley, and how would you connect their education with the Waldorf pedagogy?  

JK: That is a really good question. I think a lot of people assume that the two schools are incredibly different – they do have differences – but there are a couple of big ways they are similar. In both schools, there are communities of families who are really aligned behind one clear mission. It’s wonderful when schools know deeply who they are and then the families who are there understand that and are on the same page. About the pedagogical difference, there’s not the specific pedagogy for Buckley, but there is a specific alignment from the community behind the values of honor and truth. Also, every kid does everything in both schools, they must perform, do music, art, science, woodworking, and there is a play at every grade level. There are some really neat things that are deeply aligned, and things that I think are really important in education. I don’t feel like kids should specialize early. I think you never know what you’re going to be really good at or what you are going to love until you’re older. 

15 East: And what about the use of technology? 

JK: I spent a few years leading technology, and it is such an honor for me to be here because, throughout my career, I did not fully appreciate the powerful education that this is and the fact that it has always been a screen free education. Steiner is incredibly special because they’ve known all along how important it is for young people to develop as learners and communicators, without relationships and learning that are mediated by screens. I feel that this is the best education available in New York City, and anywhere else, especially right now. 

15 East: This leads naturally to my next question. How do you see the fact that from a foundational age, in Early Childhood, Steiner kids are working with their hands, with knitting, crochet, felting, woodwork, which continues into High School? And that we then move from an analog or screen-free environment to having phones, computers and using technology.  

JK: I think every kid should work with their hands, and this is so strong here. I actually really love the way this transition to technology is approached at Steiner because you start with cyber civics, which means that you start learning how to be online. A lot of times people skip the conversation around the fact that who you are in a digital space is not inherently disconnected from who you are as a person. At Steiner, we build that in. Before you give a kid keys to a car, you’re going to teach them how to drive, right? It is important to talk about what is the right way to communicate online and what resonates with you and reflects your values? Where are you going to be online and what kind of space is it? What is truth and what is information? And these are the actual conversations that are had here that sometimes adults don’t even have.  

15 East: What about the use of AI? 

JK: I was speaking with Mr. Marsh and Dr. Safit earlier about AI, and I love that our conversation didn’t go to “which plagiarism checker are you using.” Because that’s like deciding which kind of cookie you want to eat, right? The bigger question is: should you have cookies for dinner? Probably not. But the conversation that is being had here at Steiner is: What is creativity? What is originality? What’s copyright? What is critical thinking for? And these are the conversations that our students get to have that really prepares them for when they are going to use AI, especially when you get to college. Anybody who’s using Google Maps to get from one place to another, anybody who’s using Photoshop is using AI. It’s embedded in everything. But you need to know how to interrogate it and also know what you are trading if you use AI to write a letter to someone for you.  

On the other hand, I would be really excited if I had a family member that was struggling with a disease that I knew AI could cure. I think that is what is going to happen and the frontier that is coming. My hope is that the noise surrounding the disruption of connection and communication in communities by AI and algorithmic social media feeds quiets, so we can focus on actually making the world a better place.  

15 East:  The school will be 100 years old in 2028. How do you see the school changing and transforming in the next decade, including in its relationship to technology.  

JK: I think that actually going back to the core tenets of Steiner’s philosophy, that piece won’t change. Education has become about how many worksheets you do and what level are you at something, and those aren’t inherently bad, but they are not what defines education. The thing about education is watching these humans develop into incredible adults who will be amazing artists, designers, or scientists. One of the things that might just evolve is the way we think about how this education happens. It might be that we have more resources to help students with different learning strengths or challenges. Maybe we dig into that a little bit, so we can make sure that every child can participate in the same way in this incredible pedagogy and the beautiful spiral curriculum. The foundation is incredible. It just might be that we shift our approach slightly, serving our kids in the best way possible. Because 20 years ago, we wouldn’t have been talking about AI and creativity, but now we can and we should, because those are good questions.  

15 East: You mentioned what you think is important in education. What would you see are your biggest fear or the dangers to education? I am thinking about social media addiction and the relationship to loss of attention, and how dedicated you have to be to seek out high quality information. As a young person it is getting more difficult to figure out what is true and if what you are reading or watching is real.  

JK:  There’s a real sort of ethical ground shifting there. Growing up, I knew that if I was watching something that it was a real person, it wasn’t an AI generated actor on a screen, and I think that does something fundamentally to our humanity to not know that we can’t put a finger on something that it is real or not. There is nothing wrong with it not being real. We just don’t know. And I think that is a challenge. That is one thing that does concern me. I know students in high school right now are carrying a lot. I feel like one of the flip sides of being always plugged in and always connected is that it can feel more than any one person can carry on a given day. When I was a kid, I had three TV channels, and after I turned the television off, I could do things in my own space, in my own time. I think young people are inherently really good and want to make the world a better place, and they are constantly surrounded by the crises and the bad things that are happening in the world. It’s important to be aware of these things, but you can’t also carry so much weight. And so, again, I don’t know how to fix this. However, that is part of the reason that this education is so great, because I see how you treat each other and I see how you communicate with each other and I think that that is building the bonds that will help you face things that feel really big and hard down the road.  

15 East: What kind of advice would you give to older students, especially the seniors going through college applications and going out into the world? How to deal with adversities, for example?  

JK: I grew up water skiing, and it was just like a family thing I had to learn. I learned to ski alone pretty early. Not long after, I finished a run and I hadn’t fallen, and I told my dad that. I was so proud of myself. I expected kudos, congrats, you didn’t fall. And I asked: “Aren’t you so proud?” And, he said, you know, Julie, did you ever think that if you aren’t falling, maybe you aren’t pushing yourself hard enough? I’ve never forgotten that. Well, nobody wants to fall especially because water stings and that really hurts. You don’t want to fall or fail, but also every time you do, it’s such an exciting opportunity to find out a strength that you didn’t know you had, and wouldn’t know you had, if you hadn’t taken that risk. I’ve read, and I’m not a psychologist, that one of the best antidotes for anxiety is action. I know that sometimes just like holding your breath and jumping in the deep end, you might find out that you can do something that you never dreamt you could do. So that would be my advice. I think when I look back, I’m not sure that I could have imagined all the incredible opportunities and chances I would have, just like being here to have this conversation right now. But I had the confidence that if I fell, it wasn’t the end of my story and it didn’t say anything about me as a person. It was how I responded to that fall that said something about me as a person. So, take the risk, take the chances, even if it doesn’t work out the way you think it will. It will work out in a way that makes you better in the long run.