Marleen holds a Master in Modern History from the University of Leuven, Belgium, 1988; a High School Teaching Certificate, University of Leuven, Belgium, 1989; a Foundation Year and Waldorf Teaching Certificate, Emerson College, Forest Row, UK 1994-1996; and an Extra Lesson Training Certificate, 2003. She worked as a high school history teacher from 1989 to 1990 and a Waldorf teacher from 1991 to 1994 at the Guido Gezelle Steiner School, Brugge, Belgium.
Marleen joined HVWS in 1996 as the co-teacher of the Class of 2002 and took on her own class in 1997. She has graduated classes in 2005, 2013, 2017, 2019 and 2025. While at HVWS, Marleen has also worked as the Pedagogical Resource Teacher—mentoring other teachers—and taught math for several years to the Classes of 2015 and 2018. Marleen discovered Waldorf education when her goddaughter was enrolled in the Vancouver Waldorf School’s Early Childhood program. This prompted her to check out the local Waldorf school in Brugge.
When she came to HVWS it was because the school was not far from Spring Valley, NY, where her then-fiancé, Nigel Harrison, was enrolled to study eurythmy. They thought it would be a 4-year American adventure and a quarter of a century later, Marleen is still with us! Some of Marleen’s favorite non-school pastimes are reading, going to the movies, and traveling the world. Were she not a teacher she would be a librarian.