Meet Our Teachers
Torreyanna Suttle
Co-founder, program director
Torreyanna brings with her a lifetime of outdoor education, over a decade of experience in early-childhood education and an enduring love for the young child. Her father was a mountaineer, her mother an avid gardener; learning to scale heights to heaven and to nurture seeds to fruition informs her teaching style. Her childhood gave her a deep reverence for our earth, as a magical home to be cared for with kindness and respect. She continues to find council in the wilderness, and feels most at home by the river or the seashore!
Maui was the perfect place to deepen these connections, where she earned her Waldorf teaching certificate, taught in a preschool and kindergarten and led the early childhood aftercare program. Waldorf education honors the 'head, hands and heart' and includes an emphasis on connecting with the elements, teaching through song and story, proper nutrition, daily rhythms, and mindful media consumption. After returning to California, she was hired as a lead teacher in creating the Santa Cruz Forest School program, where she worked devotedly for three years. Previously, she earned her BA from University of California Santa Cruz in dance and anthropology while working in the Santa Cruz Waldorf School.
Torreyanna maintains a private practice as a Hakomi counselor and body worker and is also trained as a vision fast guide and Wilderness First Responder. Some of her favorite memories are child-centric outings to caves or waterfalls where songs are shared, questions explored, and exhilaration embodied. She teaches through her felt-sense of trust in the seasons and cycles of life, her love for our planet, and is grateful to work in service of the child.
Sarah Bobertz Larue
Co-founder, program director
Sarah is a mother, naturalist, craftswoman, and student of traditional life ways. She is deeply committed to connecting children with nature. Her work is inspired by the idea of "slow childhood," or preserving the simplicity and wonder of the early childhood years. Sarah holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Environmental Studies and a focus on ecosystem restoration and conservation from Lewis & Clark College in Portland. After graduating, Sarah continued working with children both as a farm educator at a nonprofit called Zenger Farm, teaching kindergarten students about gardening, beekeeping, animal care and wetland ecosystems. The next year Sarah moved to Southern Oregon to take a farm internship at Seven Seeds Farm in Williams, where she fell in love with the Southern Oregon landscape. In the years that followed she began studying ancestral skills, indigenous wisdom and life ways. She became deeply passionate about living close to the Earth and teaching our children to do the same.
Sarah and her husband Adam caretake a 40-acre piece of land called The Sharpening Stone, where they host gatherings, workshops and other events focused around ancestral skills education. Together they have two sons, ages 4 and 7.
Sarah is also a naturalist, trained through the Kamana Naturalist Training Program from Wilderness Awareness School. Jon Young and his work on nature connection and becoming "native" to wherever you are has been deeply influential on Sarah's path. Bringing her passion for earth connection to early childhood education, she has been teaching forest school for the past 5 years. Sarah especially loves to cultivate students' understanding of bird language and ability to listen using all of our senses.
Jordan Lambert
Saplings class teacher
Jordan is passionate about inspiring children's connection with the natural world and bridging Earth rhythms with education. She has a Masters of Arts in Teaching and an Elementary Education Teaching Credential from Southern Oregon University. Her teaching style weaves together elements of Earth-based education, Waldorf practices, and creativity and curiosity, creating a holistic way of learning. Jordan brings with her a variety of experiences with children: as a first grade teacher, leading children in outdoor education, as a teaching assistant for grades K-6, and supporting in various outdoor and Waldorf education settings. She loves exploring the beauty of Mother Earth with children, discovering all of the magic and learning that being outside has to offer.
Jordan received her BS in Anthropology and Geography from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, with a focus in Sustainable Agriculture. After graduating, she interned at a few permaculture farms, and taught gardening and animal care to children. Her experiences in both public school and outdoor education create an understanding of the diversity of learning that children need to thrive and be held. She is passionate about teaching mindfulness and supporting children in being connected with their emotional body.
Last year, Jordan co-taught at Earthwise. She is excited to continue teaching at Earthwise in a new capacity with the older children, while bringing academics into the beauty of forest school. She is grateful to support children in a heart-centered way in presence with the Earth.
Stephanie Meehan
Sprouts class teacher
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Stephanie was born and raised on the unceded lands of the Chumash people and is a descendant of the Gaelic peoples of what is now known as Ireland. She is committed to cultivating the inherent connection to the natural world, to community and to self that each child is born with, and facilitating re-connection when it has been forgotten.
In 2011 she co-founded an urban farm in Denver and began running children’s programs there. She has continued this work in many forms and in various countries since - from leading nature education and gardening programs at a Waldorf school in France to co-creating an earth-based village school in Chile. Stephanie spent nearly a decade abroad, working on land-based projects while living in and learning from village-based cultures. During this time she became skilled in ecological design, natural building, homesteading, early childhood development, facilitating learning, community development and also became tri-lingual. She also gained an awareness of indigenous lifeways and worldviews and the detrimental effect colonization has had on all of us. This experience has largely informed her child-led, non-coercive approach to facilitating learning with children and has inspired her to work towards the de-colonization of education and re-creating the village that children and their families need to thrive. She is trained as a permaculture designer and a facilitator of the Work that Reconnects and draws from these as well as her knowledge of indigenous land practices when facilitating outdoor learning with children.
Most of Stephanie’s experience and inspiration comes simply from being a mother living an earth-based lifestyle. She especially loves experiencing the natural world through the eyes of children, and all the wonder and magic that comes with it. Her intention is to work together in becoming adaptable, resilient, emotionally intelligent, collaborative, earth connected, and heart connected humans, and aims to do this in a way that feels safe and inclusive to families of all racial and gender identities.