Ireneo de Leon

Seventh & Eighth Grades Lead Teacher

Ireneo De Leon started teaching after he had graduated from University of San Carlos, Cebu City, in the Philippines where he took up his Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy in 1998. He started his Master’s Degree in Psychology the following year as he worked at a private school for boys. Realizing that he needed to professionalize his teaching career, he studied education and got his license as a teacher in 2003. He has had experiences as an educator both in the academe and administration for different private schools, including serving as a principal for a number of years, until he discovered Waldorf education in 2006. It was not until 2011 when his relationship to Waldorf education had become deeper when he enrolled his daughter in a Waldorf Kindergarten school in the Philippines named St. Michael’s Play Garden. Since then, he started reading and studying what Waldorf can offer to the different families in his home city. To further understand the application of its philosophy, Ireneo underwent training in Gamot Cogon Institute, a center for Waldorf education studies in the Philippines. He later joined St. Michael’s Play Garden as an Early childhood teacher for two years. In the same school, he also provided learning support to students and conducted camps during summer.

In 2015, Ireneo and his family moved to the United States to join the Prairie Moon community. In the same year, he took the Waldorf teacher training course in Antioch University, New England and pursued his Masters in Education in the same institution which he completed in 2020. His interest of study was about the application of the knowledge of the four-fold human body (physical, etheric, astral and I) to classroom management.

Being a passionate student of the Waldorf pedagogy, Ireneo joined and formed study groups to learn more about it. He has also given talks about it in different schools in the Philippines and in the United States. As of the moment, one of his initiatives is to lead a learning discussion with parents at Prairie Moon about the Waldorf pedagogy where he talks about some Waldorf principles and let the parents have a taste of some artistic method in learning.

“The greatest thing that I have realized in teaching children is that it is a special privilege to be chosen by my students to guide and nurture them in this world. This privilege is accompanied by a tremendous responsibility to carry with a noble duty, a duty to guide children to discover themselves with freedom as they grow. This reminds me to walk with each child in my class with reverence in this learning journey.”

Ireneo and his wife Nerissa have been gifted with two children, Irene and Inigo, both are students of Prairie Moon.