What do you know about Steiner schools?

[hunkermunker]

Anyone been to one? Sending their children to one? Know children who go?

I've taught some children who went to one and then returned to mainstream comp. Not a happy experience for any of us!

Thanks, BBS. Can you expand on it? Were they horribly behaved?

From what I know (I looked into it a bit - there's a Steiner not far from us, and it's certainly the only non-traditional school around):

1. Students have the same teacher throughout their entire stay at school. Which sounds good, except that teachers (inevitably) have kids they get on well with, and kids they don't ...

1. Homeopathy is a big part of their belief system. I believe you have to go in for it to use Steiner Schools.

1. They go in for dancing as therapy for illnesses etc. I think?

My Mum assists in a Steiner Kindergarten. I have to say she is a very sensible and intelligent person, not particularly 'alternative' she just has strong views on childrearing. I have to say I do agree with a lot of what she tells me about the philosophy, i.e not pressuring kids into formal learning before they're ready (deemed to be about 7 to start learning to read/write), a lot of learning through play etc. But I don't think I would consider one for my dd, as unfortunately I think a lot of the kids find it hard when they try to integrate into mainstream schools. Sorry, I should really know more, but hope that helps

I think the learning through play stuff sounds good, and lots of hands-on stuff.

The schools have some odd history (founder was racist etc etc), but I'm not sure that should be held against them.

Been to a steiner parent and toddler group with ds1 (they were very welcoming at a time when other mainstream places were not) and looked into it for ds2.

You can use any medical system you like. The reality is that most children who attend steiner schools are unvaccinated or only partially vaccinated, but certainly I know a GP's children who attend who are all fully up to date with jabs. You do not have to use homeopathy! Anthroposphical doctors are a bit halfway- recommend some jabs, not others and appear to use things like homeopathy with more conventional medicine.

It's very different from current mainstream education (in the UK) and each steiner school is different from the other steiner schools so you would need to look round really to decide whether it was for you.

PMSL at knit your own uniforms. There are no uniforms but they don't like the children wearing black, or clothes with writing on them!

Well yes, they were dreadful. But that's not necessarily an indictment of the whole system. Their parents were pretty dreadful too. Who knows?

Wasn't every white upper class 19th century gentleman a little bit dodgy in their views?

Steiner was one of the first people to think those with learning difficulties were worth educating. Hence Camphill commmunities.

I take dd2 to a Steiner toddler group which is good fun. At snack time, all the toddlers sit around a table and eat fresh fruit and wholemeal bread off china plates after singing a song blessing the food! Which makes a change from the usual bunfight over biscuits that happens at toddler groups. They're very into natural materials (no plastic) and dd2 has great fun with pine cones and blocks of wood. They also try to follow the rhythm of the seasons so they do crafts and sing songs based on seasonal fruit, vegetables, plants, insects etc.

DD2 and I enjoy the toddler group, but I wouldn't send either of the dds to a Steiner School because some of the Steiner Movement's philosophies seem too alternative and irrational to me. e.g.

• children aren't allowed to use black paint (what if you want to paint a picture of a zebra or bee?)
• children aren't allowed to play football at the school, even during break times, because it's "too competitive" (That was in our local Steiner School newsletter.)
• Children don't use computers at school until age 14
• Many people in the Steiner movement believe that gnomes really exist
• They also refuse to believe that the heart pumps blood round the body.

(I read the last 2 points on an anti-Steiner website and they sound incredible, so perhaps someone can prove them wrong!)

I don't really want to get into a row here but it seems like those who have posted negative remarks or piss-takes really don't know enough to comment. unfortunatly I havn't got time to go into it in great detail right now but I would just like to answer the original post with this..

My husband, his sister and two step sisters all atended Steiner school starting in 1988 and the youngest one finished last year. They are all very individual and between them they come from three different Mothers (same dad). They are all highly sucessful, very likeable, 'well rounded' and knowledgable people who loved their schooling and have all had very exciting and varied young lives so far.
Steiner education is fantastically detailed and the curriculum takes into account whole development of the child which is what makes it so very diferent to state education.

I am clearly in favour of Steiner education but I am neither a lentil weaver or fairy worshiper. I am simply a mother who wants her children to be happy at school and to full-fill their potential, I don't beleive that stopping playground football or not using computers until 14 (not even sure if that is true) will stop my children achieving their best.

If anyone is thinking about alternative to state education then I would highly recomend visiting a Steiner school, they hold regular open days and that really is the best way to tell for yourself (they are blooming beautiful by the way)For those who beleive thing like 'they don't beleive the heart pumps blood around the body'...
Come off it..
I heard that state school teachers are told not to smile at the new kids until the christmas term!

Half-term. We're not monsters.

I'm interested in the believing in gnomes angle.

Does this apply also to goblins, and the much underrated ghillidoo (sp).

I for one, believe.

they do believe in gnomes

gonomes are the spirit of the earth

they have a special affinity with children.

i can't be bothered to piss take here, I'm all steiner'd out at the moment, but steiner was an occult "scientist" and a good 50% of the people who send their kids to steiner schools are Bodenistas.

yes dancing is seen as a form of therapy, and its unusually insipid dancing at that, all pastel veils.

My main, overrding concern with the steiner system is how dogmatic it is. You can't really argue with the teachers, if you do you can see that look in their eyes "ah, I am arguing with one who is not properly incarnated."

i think they think goblins are a form of gnome. but i could be wrong. they do certainly believe in goblins.

phew, because I wouldn't want to think that goblins felt ostrascised by the movement.

Ghillie Dhu - I was one at Brownies...!

Thank you for the posts so far. We don't live that near a Steiner school (although it's possible to get to), but I am researching different education options because I'm like that

oh you are being unfair! what about the poor dwarves and elves -- Scandinavian trolls and beautiful alfar, Germanic Zwerge and kobolds, British fairies, Celtic spirits and seal-men? surly they must feel left out too?

no one is ostracised by steiner

just, some people, and their cultures, are less good

But their inferiority is needed to help the fittest survive.

So not ostracised . Welcomed, in fact.

yes

You sure about all this, hunker?

i don't know about the steiner methods of education but i'd have to say that the one adult i know who was steiner educated (primary and secondary) is self-absorbed to an astonishing degree and finds it very difficult to cope with dissent. In the sense that everything she says is right, at any rate...

and i see a couple of steiner kids at childrens' parties i go to, they don't seem to intergate well and one in particular always has to be taken home...

not a brilliant survey, given that it has a sample of three, but i would worry about them when they get to secondary school. i have heard that the brother of one of the younger children found 'mainstream' education very difficult indeed and became very closed-off and resentful of his parents. don't know him, though, so can't say.

it does sound lovely, all that self-expression, but i just think that sometimes children do need to learn that the world isn't necessarily interested in their opinions. tough lesson, but since i don't think the world is going to change to fit them, it might be one worth learning.

I am fairly sure you only get a mention if you are a mystical creature with roots in germanic mythology.

Otherwise you can pee off, I think.

Tell you what, I'll phone my local Steiner school and ask if I can enrol my pixie son.

Sigh. Sorry, don't mean to be disrespectful to Steiner types. Feeling a bit mad tonight, friday night and all that.

intergate...pfffft. integrate