STEINER WALDORF SCHOOLS AND INSTITUTIONS

[theantignome]

hi everyone, i wanted to start a new thread with a NEW topic heading here, as the active one at the moment with over 700 posts looks like it is all about the Cambridge school. This may confuse newcomers.

Let's continue the debate here !
All newcomers welcome !

I will shortly link our two previous threads on MN for any one new to have a look at.

Davy, could you also give a link to your new yahoo list here please ? Thanks.

"Steiner at times said things that sound strange and provocative to a present day perspective on things."

Oh so harsh but oh so true.

Why do they still follow his ideas, races being spiritually inferior, clairvoyance, reincarnation , etc?

why can't you hold a prper discussion eva/
And answer questions?

Like lush.

Did you find the bit about the larynx and giving birth that eva sune says is obscure for us in this day and age.

no sune , it's obscure.

And so is most of Steiner

Northern wrote:
"Have you anything to say about reincarnating as a lower race eva?"

Maybe he will. In the next life.

You're all quite mad.

And you all have unfeasibly big ears.

fab thread imo.

Eva is very intriguing! Does s/he actually answer any direct questions?

Northern: In the past people had babies in very odd ways too. For exemple, our (and by that I mean, Sune's and mine, us from the North, you know) ancestors procreated through 'immaculate conception.' Perhaps not quite as advanced as the larynx birth, but anyway. What happened was that the birth was pretty usual, but the conception happened during sleep and dreams (with seemingly no close contact between man and woman - that's the magic!)

We really know there's something very wrong with wikipedia just by looking at how many times Sune refers to it

Mercy: No, hardly ever. I've seen him attempt to answer questions once or twice, but I don't know if you could call it answers, really...

Sune/Eva wrote:
"Waldorf education starts with - and has the task of - building and supporting the unlimited, generic religious type of trust of the small child in the world as a good place to live in."

This is interesting for two reasons:

1. The religious type of trust might not be what parents seek for their child. Whatever the trust be in, the emphasis on religious in the context of trust, is pretty worrying. I think children have a right to have trust in their parents as people who take care of them, and trust in other people as being grown-ups who won't hurt them... but religious type of trust? No.

2. Waldorf education in practice is not a place where trust in the world as a good place is built or supported. From the age of 3,5 to 12,5 I went to waldorf. During all those years, violence and adults looking away instead of seeing and interfering, was an every day occarance. And no, it wasn't 'just me' - it was permeating the place. This is a problem that arises when the adults who are supposed to be responsible for safety, security and 'building' that 'trust' aren't cut out for the job. They are anthroposophists, but anthroposophy is really not a good guide to handling children in practice. This is actually a very important point to make. Children would have better chances of developing trust in the good of the world if they are cared for by people who have knowledge in child psychology, group dynamics and modern educational research. Anthroposophy is a 100 year old occult piece of junk - it won't give the teachers the skills they need.

Sune wrote: "Steiner was a many faceted person, an Austrian philosopher, literary scholar, educator..."

Note the word "educator." This is how Steiner schools typically describe their guru on school Web sites and in other Waldorf PR. While Anthroposophists have been known to describe him as an occultist, that is not a word that appears in their Waldorf PR materials. I think most people can draw their own conclusions as to why they don't advertise that the founder of Waldorf schools was an occultist and that his occult beliefs permeate classroom activities.

Here are some Rudolf Steiner quotes you might find interesting, keeping in mind his followers' claim that he is an "educator." Get ready for a good laugh!

? ?[A]n island like Great Britain swims in the sea and is held fast by the forces of the stars. In actuality, such islands do not sit directly upon a foundation; they swim and are held fast from outside.? [Faculty Meetings with Rudolf Steiner, p. 607.]

? ?[I]t is not that the planets move around the Sun, but these three, Mercury, Venus, and the Earth, follow the Sun, and these three, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, precede it.? [Faculty Meetings with Rudolf Steiner., pp. 30-31.]

? ?If the blonds and blue-eyed people die out, the human race will become increasingly dense.... Blond hair actually bestows intelligence. In the case of fair people, less nourishment is driven into the eyes and hair; it remains instead in the brain and endows it with intelligence. Brown- and dark-haired people drive the substances into their eyes and hair that the fair people retain in their brains.? [Health and Illness, Vol. 1, pp. 85-86.]

? ?[Science] sees the heart as a pump that pumps blood through the body. Now there is nothing more absurd than believing this, for the heart has nothing to do with pumping the blood.? Freud, Jung, and Spiritual Psychology, pp. 124-125.]

? ?There are beings that can be seen with clairvoyant vision at many spots in the depths of the earth...Many names have been given to them, such as goblins, gnomes and so forth...Their nature prompts them to play all sorts of tricks on man....? [Nature Spirits, pp. 62-3.]

? ?[T]he brain and nerve system have nothing at all to do with actual cognition....? [The Foundations of Human Experience, p. 60.]

? ?In the course of its development, the good portion of humankind will learn to use the Moon forces to transform the evil part [of mankind] so that it can participate in further evolution as a distinct earthly kingdom.? [An Outline of Esoteric Science, p. 393.]

? ?In having people do eurythmy, we link them directly to the supersensible world.? [Art as Spiritual Activity, p. 247.]

? ?It would be a mistake to view the lung as less spiritual than the nose.? [The Foundations of Human Experience, p.205]

? ?The use of the French language quite certainly corrupts the soul.? [Faculty Meetings with Rudolf Steiner, pp. 558.]

?In having people do eurythmy, we link them directly to the supersensible world.? [Art as Spiritual Activity, p. 247.]

hahahahahahahaha...........

it does not, it make sthem flap about and refuse to sit down for two days...

?The use of the French language quite certainly corrupts the soul.? [Faculty Meetings with Rudolf Steiner, pp. 558.]

well......now you mention it.....

According to the DFES (Woods) report, it is based upon extensive visits by Dept. of Education officials to Steiner schools, where they have access to (and have the responsibility to visit) all classes. So what they report about anthroposophy can be presumed to reflect its actual role in the range of schools they visited. If they say "head, heart and hands", well, that is how they saw it manifesting.

These are pretty straight-laced types (DFES) and pretty hard-boiled, too. I'd take their report as quite accurate considering that they are a group of extremely experienced educators, who have visited many kinds of schools in an official capacity.

The report certainly gives the impression of being quite thorough. But I'd definitely read the news articles and such, too. The schools are being touted as one of many positive alternative to state education by the Primary Review in Cambridge...

Raconteur

Raconteur,
most of us would agree that primary schools are too pressured,priming to jump through hops for tests, not enough creativity, too many photocopied sheets of superted... that's partly why I sent my kids to Steiner chool.

Steiner schools are good at telling us what they're not.
They aren't good at telling us what they really are.

The Woods Report is nothing to do with the government other than three people from the the faculty of education at University of West of England did a research project which they PRESENTED to the DFES, if you read it you will notice this.

This is on the first page in large letters:

"The views expressed in this report are the authors? and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department for Education and Skills."

If they can pull the wool over the eyes of countless parents and journaists , they are capable of doing to to the university researchers from Bristol who looked into them in the Woods Report.

The general feeling among critics is that they researched Steiner education in the first place because they leant that way.

There was an item on the news last night about the government employing an astrologer to predict Hitler's moves in the war.
Government officials and the cabinet were completely duped by this man.

Raconteur, so in your view, what does "head heart and hands" actually mean? In terms of manifistation?

It doesn't say anything about reincarnation, spirit worlds, epochs, karma does it?

It just sounds nice and fluffy and gentle and rainbowy and sing songy.

Are you singing that lovely Spring Lovely Spring song at your Steoiner at the moment?
I do miss that singing.
There was one which went My paddl's keen and bright, flashing with silver- a round. Used to love that.

There are certainly good things we miss.

But now my kids are alive, stimulated,happy.

At Steiner they were deadened, bored, miserable.
Like many of the children who we still occasionally see.

There's not much laughter at Steiner school.
Unspiritual.

Just in parenthesis,

What is being discussed is Woods, Ashley and Woods, Steiner Schools in England, University of West of England, Bristol: Research Report RR645.

Sune/Eva: "No small request! it took me ten years to begin to feel that I started to understand what anthroposophy is. During the ten years, I felt like touching a large elephant in the dark without knowing what it was and be able to identify it."

I understand this, but I can't reconcile that with the oft-repeated admonition that people ought to have done their own research first.

"Just how far into the induction process does one have to be in order to be permitted to ask questions on the care and/or education of your special person? How many months, years?" is a question I ask on the website I run.

I suggest that people looking to place their child don't have anything like this timescale.
Some posters have declaimed their satisfaction, almost complete satisfaction, with all they have found at Steiner Schools. I take this to be an entirely fair and honest stance/opinion. But (and I think this is quite a big 'but') in light of your header comment, I think it does also raise the equaly fair question of how much have such people actually had revealed to them about the underpinning Anthroposophy, to which a later post of yours refers?
Ten years is the major part of a school career. What happens to your child's career should it take til (say) year eight before one finds that the pedagogy is failing your child?
Davy

A very important point you've raised Easeonline

I can remember the school telling me it could take my son a year before he 'settles in' (he didn't want to go near the place]. It took him 2 minutes to settle into his local school.

This idea of feeding our children a spiritual life cannot be bought - you cannot 'make' someone spiritual.

one can try and indoctrinate them.......

Northernrefugee -'

'Steiner schools are good at telling us what they're not.
They aren't good at telling us what they really are.'

Absobloominlutely!

I really wouldn't have a problem with them if they renamed themselves 'schools of anthroposophy'.

I wouldn't have gone anywhere near them.
Then the real anthros can keep the place pure - unencumbered from us unenlightened folk molesting large elephants with the lights off......

Easeonline/David, you write:

"Just how far into the induction process does one have to be in order to be permitted to ask questions on the care and/or education of your special person? How many months, years?"

I can only describe my personal views on this, and represent noone but myself.

Regarding Waldorf education

Any person is permitted to ask Waldorf teachers or representatives of a Waldorf school any question they like regarding their child or children at the school.

Much of Waldorf education is based on well functioning habits and traditions developed over many years and does not require that the teachers think seriously in depth and in detail about why they do what they do at different times in different grades.

As with all questions and answers concerning more than superficial issues, and especially questions regarding anthroposophy, questions can be more or less to the point and the one who tries to answer the questions can have penetrated the issues asked about more or less deeply.

Waldorf teachers probably know more about anthroposophy as the philosophical basis of Waldorf education than Waldorf parents with regard to that limited part of anthroposophy that directly concerns Wldorf education. 22 of the 25 volumes of lectures and talks between Steiner, Waldorf teachers and parents are accessible for free online here on the net.

There's also a large number of secondary works on Waldorf education, that have been published over the decades. One of the possibly very best descriptions of Waldorf education may be Understanding Waldorf Education: Teaching from the Inside Out by Jack Petrash. Amelia's Waldorf and Parenting reading list gives examples of literature on the preschool years of children. This lists more basic introductions to Waldorf education.

They answer probably most of the questions any present or prospective Waldorf parent may have, together with the Wikipedia article on Waldorf education, Waldorf Answers including numerous articles on Wldorf education from outside and inside the Waldorf tradition, and Why Waldorf Works. Having read some of them, visiting a Waldorf school you may be interested in, visiting an introduction night there on Waldorf education and the school, talking to administrators and teachers, asking if you can sit in on one or other lesson and talking to a number of the pupils at the school probably gives enough of a picture of if you think you want to put your child or children at the school.

With regard to Steiner's works on the subject, they only constitute a small part (1/14th) of all the in total appr. 350 published volumes of works that in different ways and with different qualities mostly reflect what he had to say in different contexts about all sorts of issues, from A to Z. The absolute majority of them are more or less reliable transcripts of lectures he held at different times.

And one reviewer of the Petrach book writes: "I've found most of Rudolf Steiner's (Waldorf education's original mastermind) work to be impenetrable; probably due to weak translations, but still. I've read a lot of dense stuff in my day, but Steiner's is unsloggable." So sticking to the secondary literature probably is what most people today stick with...

What then if a parent - in spite of this - in addition is interested more in depth in the rest anthroposophy, the remaining 13/14th of anthroposophy as developed by Steiner in an unsloggable way ... 100 years ago, that has little directly to do with Waldorf education?

Thinking more ... will try to be back on that.

"I can only describe my personal views on this, and represent noone but myself."

Good. Ditto. So, your websites represent a personal view? Same here. One is as authoritve as the other?

"Any person is permitted to ask Waldorf teachers or representatives of a Waldorf school any question they like regarding their child or children at the school.

Much of Waldorf education is based on well functioning habits and traditions developed over many years and does not require that the teachers think seriously in depth and in detail about why they do what they do at different times in different grades."

WHAaaaT? Waldorf/Steiner education "does not require that the teachers think seriously in depth and in detail about why they do what they do at different times in different grades." This is irresponsibility verging on criminal imo. So why then do teachers do what they do at different times in different grades.?

This all strikes me as more than a little Orwellian, maybe with a fair bit of Machiavelli there to. Svengalli anyone.

"Waldorf teachers probably know more about anthroposophy as the philosophical basis of Waldorf education than Waldorf parents with regard to that limited part of anthroposophy that directly concerns Wldorf education."

Hang about...Waldorf teachers aren't required to think seriously about the whys and wherefores of what they do, but they do "know" a bit about anthroposophy?.......

Rings of dumb acquiescence and blind acceptance to me. or to put it another way, faith and faith alone.

Red Dwarf has just come on the telly. I'm off to watch it. Maybe the reality check therein will help (he mumbles, wondering if this guy is really seriuos or is he just ripping the pi**.....)
Davy

That's just the thing. Teachers don't have to think about the whys - and even less they need to think seriously - it's already decided for them what to think and what to do, and they accept it blindly on faith. Indoctrination is a word that sums it up.

"Much of Waldorf education is based on well functioning habits and traditions developed over many years and does not require that the teachers think seriously in depth and in detail about why they do what they do at different times in different grades."

Easeonline - my thoughts exactly - but remember they are on a higher spiritual plane. It isn't that they 'know' what to do in the traditional sense, its something else...................

I think they call it 'Steinering'.

Good on you for watching telly enjoy my friend!!

I am still living the dream that is a steiner community......

Last summer one of the very spiritual parents came over and suggested that it may be a good idea to put a cover over our tv.

Notice the nvc angle in the request

I seem to have slipped into a parallel universe where a bunch of strangely named people are talking a load of gobble-de-gook.
How did you lot end up on Mumsnet?
If you like the eduation, send your children to Steiner schools. If you disagree, stick to mainstream education.
Sheesh!

Northern - we sang 'My paddle's keen and bright' at my very non-Steiner primary in the 70s !! What struck me about a lot of the singing at the Steiner School was how worthy and dirgy it was. They didn't even sing the familiar form of 'Happy Birthday' in the KG.

"I am still living the dream that is a steiner community......"

What do you miss? For me, I think more than anything else, it's the gardener at his piano practice. EVERY night, 9-10 pm. He was superb:Debussy, Greig, Joplin, Gershwin.
But now I have Classic fm.
I thought I'd miss the 65 acres of woodland and fields, but from my window, I see across the river to the sheep and cattle in the fields opposite. The larch trees don't show much sign of green yet, but they will, and anyway, the end of our village is only about 200 yards away. I have ever been near to being a tree-hugger, and I still walk my dog in the woods or along the riverbank every day.
I miss the smell of wood smoke coming from the fire in my room, but my gas fire and radiators have their compensations.
I miss the residents- some of them, those I worked with directly, but I still hear of them from time to time.
I think that's about it. How 'bout you?
Davy

Eva Sune you said

" talking to administrators and teachers, asking if you can sit in on one or other lesson and talking to a number of the pupils at the school probably gives enough of a picture of if you think you want to put your child or children at the school."

When we met with the administrator and teachers at the choolours went to , several times, and many questions, they didn't say anything about anthroposophy, reincarnation, souls, spirit world, clairvoyance etc. Not a sausage.
You know that is a hopeless task, trying to get honest answers out of people pushing anthroposophy.

They also don't let people sit in on lessons, we weren,y even allowed to pop in to see a lesson in progress; our request was met with shock and surprise, as if it was extraordinary; they said it was inappropriate, as if it might break some magic spell.

The pupils we talked to stared and glazed over.

"