Steiner Schools

[corelegacyfitness]

What are your thoughts on Stenier Educations?

If your school and all other Steiner schools are as far from Steiner orthodoxy as you claim they all are, how do you explain what you do to parents who have researched Steiner and seek it out, loving every single word of Rudolph Steiner's many, many lectures and publications and completely enamoured of the SWSF material, looking forward to all the gnomes in maths and the peach blossom pink kindergarten walls and the incarnation their child will undergo?
How disappointed they would be to find out that their child will only experience a very ordinary academically focused education that they could get with far less hassle in their local CoE school, only with plastic tat instead of lovingly handcrafted wooden artsy stuff and rounded edged paper for painting on, and no requirement that they roll up their sleeves and clean the school or take courses in spiritual science..

Seriously, google Steiner Waldorf kindergarted decor and see what comes up. Note the wall colour in the majority of the images. Google Steiner dolls. They are so uniform there is a massive cottage industry in crafty circles selling them. Google S-W artwork and you get an eerily similar set of watercolours, all dreamy and fuzzy, from every corner of the globe. There is even a Steiner-Waldorf font 'Waldorfschrift'. I note your own school has by pure coincidence chosen this particular font in its brochure. Wow. What are the odds of that?

I am not quoting what you choose to call 'theory'. I am quoting actual Steiner materials including a brochure from a Steiner school, the 'chalkboard art' link that explains very neatly what 'history' is all about in Steiner schools, and last but by no means least material that is issued by the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship, the body that accredits all schools claiming to be Steiner schools in the UK, a fact you seem determined not to acknowledge yet you are aware of the fee paying or other status of various Steiner schools in the UK (vid your ref to Frome, etc).

If your school is accredited then it is an orthodox Steiner school and teachers are required to toe the party line and that includes all the wet on wet watercolouring, the history stages that I linked to, and all the rest of it including the colour of the kindergarten walls and the spiritual purpose of the education. If your school is not accredited then you are talking through your hat about Steiner.

Either someone has lied to you and you are having trouble believing that someone would deceive you or you are deliberately obfuscating here. It matters greatly that Steiner teachers are involved in the process of reincarnating souls and that this is the purpose of Steiner education.

Since you did not mention Anthroposophy until other posters brought it up here, I have no reason to believe your MO would be otherwise in RL. Did you mean to say you talk to prospective parents about Anthroposophy if they bring up the matter first?

As always with Anthroposophy and Steiner schools, it is necessary to explain what terms mean because they do not always mean what they normally mean in English. A masked vocabulary is used:
'Self development' means becoming more and more involved or indoctrinated in Anthroposophy, advancing through levels of esoteric knowledge to the highest echelon.
'Imagination' in Steiner’s vocabulary means 'psychic sight'.
'Art' involves 'the art of magic' and it is always related to incarnation. Yellow and blue best facilitate contact between the incarnating soul and the physical body. 'History' as taught in Steiner schools is also intimately linked to incarnation (see chalkboard art link).
A 'scientist' is actually an 'occultist'. (Check out what the term 'spiritual science' means.)
'Prayer' is referred to as 'verse'.

I don't know why you continue to insist no Anthroposophy is taught to children when nobody has ever claimed that this is the case. What you are denying is not the issue. The issue is that every single detail of every single Steiner school, from the colour of the walls to the choice and appearance of toys and props comes directly from Rudolph Steiner's Anthroposophic vision and parents are not told about this, or about the real purpose of a Steiner school, which is accomplished through a meticulously planned curriculum and environment -- i.e. incarnation of the soul.

Everything down to the last detail comes from Steiner's vision. None of it was based on anything but his claims of clairvoyance. Most of what is written about Steiner is produced by Anthroposophic sources. It is a closed loop. As seen here, people asking questions are met with disingenuous waffling, use of masked vocabulary, and claims of not being a normal Steiner school if the people asked are involved in Steiner ed. We also see someone trying to imply she doesn't know how to spell Ahriman, and laughing off the concept of a figure who is taken seriously in Steiner education and Anthroposophic thought. So much denial. There is no such thing as Steiner lite.

And yet there is an accreditation organisation that takes itself very seriously.

The Catholic Church condemns theosophy, from which Steiner derived Anthroposophy, and condemns the occult, which Anthroposophy is. Many Jewish commentators have expressed serious qualms about the occult nature of Anthrosophy.

There is no reason for gratuitous criticism of elements of religious belief on this thread. After all, Steiner education has nothing whatsoever to do with religion, right? So why lash out at elements of what a particular church teaches? It is irrelevant at best and mean spirited at worst.

how do you explain what you do to parents who have researched Steiner and seek it out, loving every single word of Rudolph Steiner's many, many lectures and publications and completely enamoured of the SWSF material, looking forward to all the gnomes in maths and the peach blossom pink kindergarten walls and the incarnation their child will undergo?

I don't think I have ever met such a parent. I actually like the blossom pink walls in kindergarten, it helps create a very calm mood. I have also never claimed it is not a normal Steiner School, I just said that the school has books, dolls with faces and black crayons - common accusations about Steiner schools is that such things are forbidden. Obviously that is a lie as some Steiner Schools do have these things, and also have precocious readers before 7 and all the other things that are supposedly anathema to Steiner Education.

I've also never met anyone who takes Ahriman seriously either, though as a metaphor for the negative effects of some technology I think it's quite a good one. (thank you for confirming my spelling was correct, I couldn't be bothered to google). Did you watch the film by the way? I thought it rather interesting that some people at the forefront of techology (Google/AOL etc) are choosing Steiner education for their children.

I tend to obfuscate spirituality and religion - I have no problem with the Christian elements of my child's school, though I am not a Christian myself. I did not lash out at Catholicism, merely said I personally found it every bit as fucked up, twisting and damaging as some claim Steiner to be. That is not lashing out, just making a statement of truth. I don't turn up on threads about Catholic schools saying that Catholicism is damaging, because that is not the experience of many who are Catholics, (or maybe they don't realise that the head-fuck state of many Catholics is not normal?) I'm an ex-Catholic so I could easily turn up say these things.

You think people who partake in Steiner education are stupid, I think Catholics are fucked-up, militant Atheists are arseholes and Methodists are hypocrites, go figure.

I am more than comfortable with my choice of Steiner Education for my daughter, though it makes me sad there is so much bullshit spoken about it, or people who take one negative occurrence and apply it to the entire system. I'm quite sure there are dreadful Steiner schools out there, I'm equally certain there are much worse state schools out there. I'm also certain that my daughter's school is one of the best in the area including both the private and state sector. It's also one of the most diverse in the area (actually the most diverse that I've noticed but I can't say I've seen every local school). That is why threads like this make me feel both sad, angry and frustrated.

siri123
"At the risk of igniting a back lash it is important to note that Mathsanxiety quotes a lot of theory but has no direct experience of schools in practice."

Siri- I have extensive experience of the schools with my kids and agree with everything Mathanxiety says. So do lots and lots of other people. I too think you are trying to make the antrhposophy seem slight when it is central, either as a PR thing or because you don't really know.

Now I get it mathsanxiety your opposition is based on Catholic religious dogma rather than on the reality. There is absolutely no occult in any school I know and I say that as a parent who has had the opportunity to work in a school rather than as a Steiner person. Most teachers do not spend endless time reading the occult ideas of Rudolf Steiner which were representative of the time he wrote but not relevant to most people now. In fact most probably have little idea about them. Some will of course. The colours in school are calming and do suit the ages of the children and create a nice atmosphere but no one is thinking of the original reason for them although actually we don't have them.

My children now go to a Catholic school where exam results are exceptional but it is based on passing the test and not real education in my view. Also the school has no comprehension of how to care for children in the way they are cared for at a Steiner school. Shouting and condemnation are common place. Teachers neither have the time nor the inclination to really look at each child and understand them as they do in our school. When my daughters helped with the incoming Year 7 who came to do their CATs test,so that the school knew how to set them, some children were crying because they were sat in a large hall as if doing their GCSEs. They did two tests of more than an hour each. But what was really scary was the demeanour of the teacher in charge. No smiles, no welcome. Just instructions and hardness. A child was severely shouted at because her mobile phone went off (phones are not allowed). They were not comforted by the teachers but by my girls. The other older kids helping who had been at the school since Year 7, like the teachers could not show empathy. I think they did not know how because it had not been modelled ti them. My daughters were sent to each crying child because they know how to show empathy.

I was taught in Catholic schools from 4 to 18 and I know not all will be like this but it is similar to my experience. This school was described recently by Ofsted as outstanding in every way and called a caring school - totally missing the reality.

If you think education is more than exam results. If you want your child to be free of fear inside and know who they are. If you want them to love learning -my girls are still so enthusiastic about what they learn and are in top sets - whereas their friends are so fed up with school - then Steiner is a good choice but you need of course to check out each school because they are not all the same. You can always learn more maths and science. I think what Steiner schools give children is immeasurable - a strong sense of who they are. A foundation of confidence because in kindergarten particularly they have been given peace , calm, understanding and a chance to be themselves and to play. They will not be shouted at and the anthroposophical teachers -even if you think their ideas cooky - will provide endless care. They understand children deeply. This is not matched in mainstream schools.

Mathsanxiety your posts inject fear into people about Steiner schools which is not there and based on your prejudice not real knowledge. As in Catholic or any other kind of school you will find teachers who get it wrong and that us what I think people experience when things are negative. There just is no hidden agenda.

Shall we talk about the bullying then? The fact that these caring 'anthroposophical teachers' don't intervene because it's karma working itself out.

And I will also reiterate that I have experience of Steiner and found the situation as Mathsanxiety describes. The obsessive devotion to the precise teachings of Rudolph Steiner was a considerable part of why we didn't stay there.

Bullying happens in all schools and many workplaces. I've got friends at state schools who have been told by the school not to report instances of serious bodily harm to the police because it's just "kids being kids" and "the bully is having problems at home". One only needs.

My daughter's school takes a two-pronged approach, to support the child being bullied, and to help the bully deal with the root causes of their behaviour and unhappiness, so that the cycle of bullying does not get repeated. Getting positive input from the children and making them want to change their behaviour and recognise why it is damaging is an important development of the self-responsibility which is intrinsic to the school ethos, and personally, I think it's a better way to deal with bullying than simply excluding the bully for a short period of time without recognising and addressing why the behaviour is actually happening.

Siri " There just is no hidden agenda."

can't believe you say this. waldorf schools all the world over are very very similar; they are anthroposophy schools.they all have eurythmy, use the temperaments do the curriculum in the same stages, do wet paintings. All these things are for a spiritual anthroposophical reason.

There is PLENTY of shouting and actual physical stuff at Steiner schools too you only have to look back here on mums net and read the older posts. the so called empathy you mention was completely lacking at my kids waldorf school here in UK; there was self absorbed floaty falseness to it all; unreal; un natural while the kids just did what they wanted to each other, ignored by adults.

It is very typical of Steiner supporters like Siri to demonise mainstream education; how dare you dismiss every other school but waldorf steiner.

Mathsanxiety's posts touch the heart of Steiner education in my experience and many other people's.

Coffee gonzo I do believe the demonising is in fact coming the other way. I think I said specifically that I am NOT saying all Catholic schools are the same as the experience I described. I told it because it was being said that Catholic schools were great and Steiner schools were bad. My point was that different kinds of schools offer different things, different experiences and have different values. My girls' mainstream catholic school offers 'outstanding' exam results but, in my view, not much care or real understanding of each child of the kind I see happening in the Steiner school I know. That is far from demonising all mainstream education or saying all Steiner schools are great.

Some schools are very committed to following the precise teachings of a Rudolf Steiner (or rather their interpretation of those teachings) which will certainly suit some parents and some schools do not.

No, it is not based on anything to do with Catholicism. The comment on RC church opinion and Jewish commentators' opinions was related to someone's comment on whether Steiner was a cult.

It is the deliberate hiding of what Steiner really is, the denial that there is a Steiner orthodoxy, the insistence that it is all a matter of child-centred education that I base my objections on. Steiner schools have a quasi religious function, an 'occult' function in Seiner's own words, that is hidden from prospective parents and this is done, again in Steiner's own words with deliberate deceit in mind . This is the enormous problem I am seeking to highlight.

Stuff like this:
'The colours in school are calming and do suit the ages of the children and create a nice atmosphere but no one is thinking of the original reason for them although actually we don't have them.'
You can deny all you like. It is a sad sight to see, actually.
The colours of classrooms in Steiner schools are prescribed, not chosen. Like every other detail of Steiner education, they are based on Anthroposophical notions.

Is your school SWSF accredited?

If not, why does it call itself a Steiner school?

Teachers who focus on the central spiritual aspect of it all are getting Steiner ed right, not wrong, as you seek to suggest. Steiner schools are shape sorters for children. Not garish plastic shape sorters but the kind that looks lovingly hand crafted from good quality wood. You are pegged, labelled, assigned a certain type when you arrive there and nobody with a right to be told about that is told about it. Children are going to be moulded in Steiner schools just as they are going to be moulded in Eton but parents are not going to be told about that when they turn up for one of the many open days.. You can be held back for a year based on aspects of your assigned temperament and perceptions of how well your incarnation is going. You can fail art and never understand what you are doing wrong. It is based on pseudo science that is mind boggling in its comprehensiveness and its reach would surprise many parents who have been lulled into a false sense of optimism by all the soothing colours and the wooden playthings and the cloth dolls and the rounded edges to the paper.

You have swallowed the Steiner thing hook, line and sinker, haven't you? And yet you sell the central element of your beloved school so short and sow seeds of disinformation so carefully. Could it be that an intelligent person has been so thoroughly bedazzled by catchphrases and appearances that she has entered some sort of magical fairyland that has disabled her critical faculties without her realising it? You have apparently gone in blinkered and alienated by your perceptions of the alternatives, or willing to wholeheartedly condemn the alternatives based on surface level impressions while at the same time willing to dive into Steiner based on surface level impressions. Steiner schools in the UK love parents like you. In the US, where schools tend to be 'free and easier' for want of a better phrase, less stiff upper lippy, more willing to go with the children's flow, and with no school uniforms or outward signs of uniformity for parents to look down their noses at, Steiner schools have a harder time charming people. For some reason you have chosen Steiner ed over Montessori. What made you choose Steiner over Montessori?

At least Worldgonecrazy has not sought to deny every single Steiner element in the school her own children attend. She happily embraces the Parsifal legend (according to Steiner, Parsifal really existed) and the process of ennobling that goes with it as described in my chalkboard art link. She verifies with her admission that her children participate in teh Parsifal thing that the 'chalkboard art' link I provided gives an accurate account of how 'history' is taught in Steiner schools, what material passes for 'history' in Steiner schools, and why the curriculum is as it is.

You can always tell what you are dealing with in a school system by how it treats the teaching of history. It always reflects the cultural zeitgeist. It always reflects the preoccupations of the present.

I don't think the people here who are criticising Steiner school are demonising, they're just asking for complete disclosure rather than a PR job which actually doesn't mention the elephant in the room; it's not honest to try and pretend the schools don't have this iceberg underlying them called Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophical world view, which guides everything that happens- good or crazy.
How many children go all the way through at your school i wonder. Is there a large drop out?
And Siri I thought if you were a member of the Steiner Waldorf Schools fellowship there were very strict guidelines revolving around anthroposophy and what you do in the school. All the schools have to follow certain ways of doing things or you aren't allowed to use the name Steiner or belong to the fellowship.
So i assume greenwich does all the things I mentioned- uses temperaments, eurythmy, wet painting, etc etc

Mathanxiety- crossed post!

'it was being said that Catholic schools were great and Steiner schools were bad.'

Maybe your problem is that you can't read?

Where did anyone say that Catholic schools are great? Apart from your own report of Ofsted ratings?

What has been said about them here on this thread is that they do not lie or hide the Catholic element that makes them use the label Catholic.

This is in stark contrast to the Steiner approach exemplified by your comments on this thread.

I see a lot more danger in the belief systems peddled by religious based schools than the modern approach to steiner educational philosophy adopted by good steiner schools - I don't see long discussions like about all the dangerous church of England, catholic etc schools which based on the belief that children are sinners based on the arbitrary rules of an imaginary being and will burn in hell and which support (and even celebrate) the many other atrocities described by the bible as being sanctioned by this being. Let's analyse the beliefs that underline your local COE primary schools in this level of detail and without context of what the school actually does and we will all chose to home school as a result!

Mathanxiety - I think you are conveniently forgetting about the multitude of unpalatable beliefs and practises that are connected with being called "Catholic" which schools would generally not wish to be associated with e.g. stance against contraception (even if you end up contracting life limiting diseases), subservience and ownership of women, demonisation of homosexuality etc. How much disclosure is there of such things such things to prospective parents who may not be catholic themselves - are such beliefs published in the prospectus or are they in fact swept aside because they do not impact on the ethos and modern nature of the actual school?

But the difference is rainbow C of E, catholic etc are upfront about what underpins their education, and they don't refer to the bible every five minutes to sort out a bullying dispute, to what colour to paint a classroom, or what type of dance to do. Waldorf steiner use steiner's religion as a guide to nearly everything they do i think.

Spot on math anxiety

"You have swallowed the Steiner thing hook, line and sinker, haven't you? And yet you sell the central element of your beloved school so short and sow seeds of disinformation so carefully. Could it be that an intelligent person has been so thoroughly bedazzled by catchphrases and appearances that she has entered some sort of magical fairyland that has disabled her critical faculties without her realising it? You have apparently gone in blinkered and alienated by your perceptions of the alternatives, or willing to wholeheartedly condemn the alternatives based on surface level impressions while at the same time willing to dive into Steiner based on surface level impressions."

Coffee- actually constant reference to bible and ten commandments to determine how things are done - imposed prayers and services. All these features of coe and catholic schools are influenced by their beliefs - we chose not to care because those beliefs are more "mainstream" and overlook that many of those religious beliefs are in fact utterly ridiculous.

not the same at all.

What do u think about pidgeon holing children according to their body shape and size of their head?www.dcscience.net/The_Four_Temperaments_Rudolf_Steiner.jpg

sorry didn't link it
steiner's temperaments

What anyone thinks of the Christian beliefs that are taught in CoE or RC schools is utterly beside the point.

The point that Steiner advocates seem completely unable and unwilling to comprehend is that all parents who send their children to CoE and RC and other mainstream faith schools are told upfront what their children will be exposed to by way of religious belief or practice.

On the other hand, parents taking a look at Steiner schools will never be told that Steiner considered himself to be the latest in a long line of 'esoteric Christians' practicing 'esoteric Christianity' reaching back to the legend of the Holy Grail or that Anthroposophy is an 'esoteric Christian' set of beliefs, the heir of "Essenes, Manicheans, Bogomils, Cathars, the Orders of the Temple (Templars) and of the Christ (in Portugal). Masonry. The history of the Grail temple (Albrecht von Scharfenberg, 1270) and esoteric Christianity from 14th century up to R.Steiner". Maybe there are Jewish parents or orthodox Christian parents who would like to know that upfront? Or atheists and agnostics?

The Parsifal experience from a German Steiner school is most interesting:

Note -- in this linked page the lecturer at the Parsifal retreat is the 'school doctor', a fact that goes unremarked. Note also that the school doctor corrects the student notebooks and dictates some of the material they put there, lest the students get it wrong.

Some of the intellectual arrogance of Steiner school devotees comes out:
"As the beautiful watercolor and charcoal paintings became ready, they were hanged at the walls of the large painting room, which served also as dinner and lecture room. The hotel's typical kitsch paintings were gradually replaced by student's paintings and the room started to look like a museum, highly admired by the hotel's personnel. (You may imagine the impression this makes on simple, semi-illiterate people...)"
-- No need to imagine it.
The effect of the great Steiner swish has already been seen here.

Also seen here is the tendency to mistake appearance for substance ('typical kitsch' vs Steiner art).
The author is a little too un-self conscious and too eager to ring the praises of Steiner ed to realise that perhaps a reader may infer that his own attraction to the Steiner look means he may have once been a 'simple, semi-illiterate' person too, before his redemption of course.

'For each student, the physical result of the block is the notebook and the separate paintings done by each student. The notebook I am looking at now has 62 pages, handwritten with large letters and has many decorations, done with colored pencils, crayons and watercolors (the paper sheets are produced separately and then bound together). The first page has the title "Parsifal" and colored drawings of a castle, a knight with sword and helm, a little boy with his bow and arrow (Parsifal's first weapons), etc. The second page has a drawing of a knight in his armor and a landscape, and the 14 first lines of Eschenbach's original ("Ist zwivel herzen nachgebur,/ das muoz der sele werden sur/...", "When doubt takes place in a heart, the soul goes through bitter experiences..."). These 14 lines were read in the original by the students each morning, before the lecture. The third page contains the 14 lines in Portuguese.'
-- So much for creativity. These students are seventeen years old apparently.

The use of the phrase 'physical result' indicates there is some other effect to be described later. The author does not disappoint.

The extent to which the students are led by the nose to form the 'right' conclusion and the extent to which the exercise is a spiritual one, a 'coming of age' retreat from the world in sparse surroundings, an upper room of sorts, or some bush experience you might find in sub Saharan Africa becomes apparent in the extract from the student notebook.
"The relations that highly attracted me were Parsifal's and our life, as a path to be desired by each one of us.
The contents of these days made me become more connected to the spiritual intervention in our lives, and the desire to increase this connection everyday. I am impressed how a school may give us so much life experience, changing the paths of our lives."

Quick question. Why do Steiner schools pay quite considerably less for their staff?

A quick Google shows that in Edinburgh they are looking to recruit a Maths teacher for fractionally more than a probationer.

One of the things that concerns me most is the idea of withholding information from children. Not only in learning to read, develop own painting style etc. as mentioned above but the "the gnomes do it" approach to technological and scientific query. Does anyone have any further information on that?

The lineage of the school doctor is mentioned in that piece too. Her father was the one who originated the particular Parsifal course.

The tracing of lineage and emphasis on personal links to the fount of all knowledge (Steiner and Anthroposophy) also came up in the thesis on Camphill communities that I linked earlier, where there was a little discussion of the process of how things came to be exactly as they were in the various Camphill communities the author had experienced as a child and as a student.

RescueRangers, this is done because the focus of Steiner schools is not academic, whereas mainstream schools and even other alternative approaches (Montessori schools for instance) have an academic focus. The focus of Steiner schools is incarnation.

The approach of schools that place information front and centre, and see the imparting of real knowledge as theirs mission (mainstream schools and Montessori) is fundamentally different from that of Steiner schools. Steiner schools claim to be child-centred but what they really are is focused on the soul of the child (soul being a word that means something different from spirit in Steinerese) and this can lead not only to dismissal of science, involvement of gnomes in teaching of maths, but also to everyone looking the other way when children are victims of bad treatment or even bullying. By contrast, a school with an academic focus will work to make sure a child understands the material and strives (with varying degrees of success, depending on the school) to make the school a place where children can learn the material on the curriculum with as few impediments as possible.

Kua, I can only surmise that this is to weed out those with a true vocation from those who are in it for the money, and also because no formal state teaching qualifications are necessary to teach in a Steiner school, but Steiner qualifications are. The candidates chosen may or may not be qualified to earn standard teacher rates elsewhere in other words.

there was sod-all empathy from ds's kindergaten teacher towards him - it was his fault/karma when he fell off the rocking horse or when one of the other children pushed him over

ffs there were two adults in the room in charge (loosely used term there) of 8 children and they still couldn't make sure they were all safe - too busy cutting the corners off watercolour paper and speaking in stupid sing-songy voices

one morning I walked past the school about twenty minutes after all the children had gone in and found one of the other little boys running down the road - he'd opened the gate and let himself out without anyone noticing - I took him back and the teacher had the nerve to blame my ds - she said he must have damaged the latch somehow ...

At Christmas all the children had to take part in a winter ceremony which involved forming a spiral while holding candles. As ds had a combination of poor motor skills and tics which caused his arm to shoot out suddenly at random I had my doubts as to the wisdom of him taking part but was told it was an absolutely vital part of the school year. Sure enough ds managed to spill hot wax on himself - not a single member of staff lifted a finger to help - I had to rush my screaming 4 year old and find a cold tap to run his hand under. The next day I asked his teacher why on earth she hadn't reacted and was told that she hadn't wanted to 'spoil the energy of the ceremony' and anyway ds was over-reacting and wasn't really hurt

This all happened fairly recently at a school not a million miles away from Siri's. Crucially we were never told about any of this before ds started - the word anthroposophy was not mentioned along with their beliefs in reincarnation and karma etc. We were sold the line of 'creative, child-centred, natural' education - pah!