Should Steiner schools become free schools?

[maverick]

Interesting article by Francis Gilbert on the Local Schools Network website:

Should the state be funding schools which were founded by a racist mystic?

www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2011/01/should-the-state-be-funding-schools-which-were-founded-by-a-racist-mystic/

He was certainly a mystic but whether he was racist is open to question. See the Wikipedia article on Rudolf Steiner for an alternative view. In any case he died 75 years ago so I don't really see how his views are relevant to whether or not Steiner schools can become free schools. What matters is how they operate today. Alternatively, perhaps we should abandon Parliament - after all, that was set up by Edward I who was racist by today's standards!

I don't know-the underlying principle of these mystic racist schools is to foster that which is universally human in mankind. This could be very much at odds with any given nation's goals, economic ones come to mind certainly.

The wiki article is 'cleansed' by supporters of the Steiner Waldorf movement. This is a well known mumsnet joke. Try changing anything! The dates are right though.

I like the Local Schools Network.

only if Jedi schools do too

On the one hand I agree with activate-like fund everything that moves but the question in the article is one of limited resources-funding alternative schools takes away funding from existing schools.

prh47bridge I don't think that's a fair comparison-abandoning Parliament. I think it's more a question of if you would adopt Parliament today over some other system of governance.

marking my place for the bunfight

It was intended as a joke! But the underlying point stands. Just because the founder of something may have been racist by today's standards that doesn't mean that the things he founded are necessarily racist or wrong and undeserving of support. I am not a fan of the Steiner schools but I do not agree with the arguments in the article linked to in the OP. Attempting to equate Steiner with Hitler is clearly ridiculous.

I don't disagree with you but I'm saying I think the question is-is this the best choice that the state can make now-given the resources and information available-today.

Free schools and Steiner in the same thread title? I'm not brave enough to comment on either.

But, Francis Gilbert is a bit of a twat. Didn't he write a book advising parents on how to choose the right school for their dc's? Then he wrote an article about having to move his ds from a school because it didn't suit him. Now he appears to be Fiona Millar's chief cheer leader.

Doesn't matter if the author is a bit of a twat or not, at least to me. The free school question seems to me to be essentially of funding diversity versus putting all eggs in one basket (and watching that basket). Then the Steiner question is one of some baskets being better than others, IMO.

Agree, they should not be publicly funded because of their underlying pretty weird philosophy, which they try to hide from prospective parents.

We went to look at one for DD once, on a Saturday open day and it was a very strange place. At the time I didn't know much about it, so just imagined it would be lovely and creative and 'back to nature'-y. Have since found out that far from encouraging children's creativy, they all have to do similar pictures on wet paper with certain colours, or some such nonsense.

The school building was enormous, but most classrooms were not being used so it had a very strange abandoned atmosphere. Books on the shelves mostly seemed to be old Penguins, in the same 70s editions I recognised from my own childhood.

Added to which, hardly anyone spoke to us, which I thought was odd, did noone want to 'sell' the place as at a normal school Open Day? There was one woman who seemed to already know the staff and she kept monopolising the only teacher who seemed to be there. Seemed very cliquey.

A strange experience overall, so we went home and forgot about Steiner.

However I have since found out (from Mumsnet) about Rudolf(?) Steiner's racist philosophy. DD is mixed race, so it all seems to add up, IYSWIM? Unpleasant.

samay - that's awful, is this racist crap actually part of the curriculum? Would they really treat non-white children differently? I am spitting feathers now at the idea of those lentil-knitting freaks turning their noses up at lovely DD for reasons of race for god's sake, never come across this before and you don't expect it in the UK in the 21st century, do you?

I'm sorry you had such a bad experience, and can only be thankful that we made it no further than the Open Day!

I think we had a lucky escape! How is this even legal?

Hope your DCs are OK.