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.

Davy, you make the piano practice sound wonderful.
I miss the singing, I used to find that feeling of a mass of people singing in harmony or rounds quite stirring. Unless you go to church or belong to a singing group, that opportunity rarely arises.
I miss some of the people , but still see a couple, and I miss the landscape, which was incredibly dramatic.
And I miss the village store which has some goos stuff; I still occasuionally go when the kids see friends. People stare at us, or do a strange smile! "Oh my God, what do they want? How much do they know?" We met an oldish teacher there last time, who is a big anthro, she knew we knew about anthroposophy, and it made her really wary.....

Eva you said

"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."

The Steiner Waldorf movement point blank denies any religious connotations.

I even remeber asking several times about the religious aspect at meetings with staff and administrators at the school where our kids went. They lied.

Waldorf and trust do not go hand in hand.
The deceipt used by Steiner Waldorf is huge.
It is part of their make up- to deceive people in to thinking the education /movement is about one thing, when in fact it's about a completely different one.

I don't know how anyone dares to say "trust" and "Steiner Waldorf" in the same breath.

Satine, the Steiner world is certainly a parallel universe.One which most people had no idea about.
The thing about these threads is , it has opened people's eyes to that fact.
They are completely barking.
They try to hide it. They lie, they deceive, they take peole's money. But they don't tell the truth.
If you're not interested, you don't have to join in.
But alot of people have, it has opened a huge can of worms for the Steiner people, so much so, that people from all over the world have come on.

Sune 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."

I strongly disagree with this statement. It's my opinion based on my experience as a parent of former Waldorf students that Waldorf education promotes fear of the mainstream world (especially non-Waldorf schools), modern technology and modern medicine. It seems to be more about the negative than the positive--don't let your children watch TV, don't let your children listen to recorded music, don't let your young children use computers, don't own plastic products, don't let your children play with certain types of toys. Parents and children are taught to fear the effects all these items in the mainstream world will have on them. In my opinion, the world outside the Waldorf school is presented by Waldorf schools as a place that is not good to live in.

load of cocky balls

Northern - what makes you think that you and your cronies are providing any kind of service to anyone with your CAPITAL LETTER THREADS. Or are you tapping into your psychic powers to figure that out . I just think you like to see yourself in print ... and that you guys are the ones who end up looking like fanatical loonies.

Hi Aussie,
Haven't heard you for a while.... I thought the thread was fading, how good of you to bring it back.....

Who said anything about providing a service?

Although , you have to admit, alot of people have read the threads, and steered a wide berth with regard to Steiner education.
So , if that's the service you mean, Steinerifferic....

I don't use capitals much.

It's unfortunate that this had caused such a stir that and old anthroposophist from Sweden sees it as his task to stalk people around posyoing his web sites, but he's the fanatical loony.

Him and the people who , knowing the facts about Steiner schools and the philosophy around them, bury their heads, and blindly follow their guru and the cult.

Powerofjoy - Yes, yes yes! I could not agree more. It breeds fear, neuroticism and a sense of failure if your family is such that you simply CANNOT comply with all the diktats. Also, because the Steiner teachers have perfected that way of holding themselves as though they are gurus, if you're an unconfident first time mum you can believe they're an authority on what's best for your child.

How many families, I wonder, have fallen apart because mum gets sucked into the Steiner world and wants to replicate kindergarten in the home, whereas dad would like to live in the mainstream world? And if you're a mum like me trying to live in both worlds you end up utterly torn and worn out.

Well said PowerofJoy [smile}
Yes any contact with the outside world is discouraged.

They put it oh so gently though. I was told it was 'best to let my dc play with children only from the steiner school so as to support the ethos and community.'

Living in such a community I have seen the nervousness of parents if their children even speak to non-steiner children as if they may be polluted.

I've seen parents drop long term friends because they let their own children watch tv.

I've seen a parent cry because she went to a city and everything was too synthetic.

I see misery, but most of all I see FEAR.

Power, you do always post very salient things-
we were told "What do you expect if you mix with outsiders?" about various things.

"I've seen a parent cry because she went to a city and everything was too synthetic."

Was it the same one who didn't use a pram because it's not natural to use an artifact?

Hi Northern I did read the 'artefact' thread but I didn't know the person - was it Chandra??

Because aesthetics plays such a large part in the school, I've seen parents become enveloped by the refinement of it all.

I was drawn in by the beauty of the place, it took me a while to realise that steiner didn't invent nature, that I could go for walks in the woods on the beach, that we could bake bread, sing songs, paint, dance FOR FREE.

Which brings me to rather a contentious issue....I couldn't believe the amount of parents fiddling the system there, by that I mean on benefits but sending their children to private school. One mum had a house with the housing association which she rented out and had her own house she shared with her partner - all her mail was sent to the other house if I remember. They had 2 cars, went on regular holidays. It made me so cross. They were probably earning more on benefits than my dh does with 2 jobs. Then there were the trustafarians.....

Another thing was many of these people called themselves 'artists', 'teachers', 'writers' 'therapists' etc. which meant in reality they worked maybe once every 3 months holding a workshop, then retired to channel some more energy
Sorry, but where I come from you have to earn these titles.
Rant over.

Yeah, there was all that where we were too but there were also genuinely people who had very little, and gave it all to "the cause", which wound me up big time.
There was a bizarre attitude to money altogether. The (German mainly, but the others too) families from the camphill always had their kids decked out in the most beautiful expensive leather lined boots; the minute the Boden catalogue came out , they would all be lined up in those f*@king hotchpotch t-shirts and woollen stripes that no-one else could afford.
And some of the anthros who weren't camphill seemed to think extorting money by slightly devious means was ok - because it was for their higher cause.

Anyway bark- you can't work really if your kid's at Steiner beause they don't go full time for ages, and even when they do , you have to commit to all the other cleaning and gardening and knitting tofu crafts...

Puts pentatonic harp down, lights candle......
Yes Northern - yes there was a shoe/boot fetish at ours too

'Looking the part' was all consuming both financially and emotionally. It was all rather a fashion parade every day - instead of asking how are you/the children, it would be 'what a wonderful jumper, where did you get it from?' everything had to be so bloomin worthy - even if it wasn't your own work. It had to be the right shade of green, not too new looking - that would be ostentatious. Lots of mums use to fake it, buying candles/cakes/biscuits from the local organic shop to donate to the fayre.

Yes during my steiner years I have never felt so judged.
Everything comes under the closest scrutiny.

Though if you were a real hardcore anthro you had to really let you self go - they would probably call it 'surrendering'. It had to look effortless, no make up, hair dye - which looks great if your of swedish/german extraction, but quite bazaar seeing mums in their mid 30's with grey hair.

Which lead me to think the whole thing is a beautiful but expenisive sham. I'm not saying the modern world is perfect either, just that these schools should be called 'anthroposophy schools'.

And another thing...whilst TOTALLY recognising your descriptions, Barking and Northern...

A lot of this thread has been about the dishonesty re. anthroposophy and its role within Steiner schools. I also found there was a real lack of information and clarity about what lay ahead of us when we joined the Steiner School. It is hard to know what questions to ask when it is your first child and you are actively looking for something different to the local state school where your child is miserable.

I had NO idea how much time I would spend cleaning, fundraising, helping others look after their children, hanging around between pick-ups once my second child started, hanging around in parks filling the day because the hours were so short, baking, on the telephone to fellow parents, preparing for fairs/festivals etc etc

Today I looked at a local nursery for my DD. Everything was so upfront and normal. What a
blessed relief.

Barking wrote: "...these schools should be called 'anthroposophy schools..."

Bingo!

Janni wrote: "It is hard to know what questions to ask..."

Even if you know what questions to ask, you cannot necessarily count on truthful answers. I asked many specific questions about Anthroposophy and its role in the classroom. One of several falsehoods I was told was that Anthroposophy was not present in any way in the classroom. It was before the Internet was popular, so I didn't have access to all the information that is available now.

I have to say that the woman who gave me this misinformation was a nice person whom I can't help liking. I don't know if she really believed what she was telling me or if she believed that lying to non-Anthroposophists is justifiable.

Yes Janni- that's another huge deception isn't it?
We were made to feel so guilty when we couln't fulfill our part of the rota for stuffing envelpoes because we had a big job on.
The rota had one session which was from 8 to 11! We live 18 miles away, (a treacherous journey on a winter's night too)

As to liking the people who lie to you Margaret, it's a strange sense one gets, beacuse we still see people occasionally; they are slightly shifty.

We saw someone a couple of weeks ago by fluke, a big anthro teacher at the school, who I do like in spite of it all. I can read all over her face, wondering what we think and know..

Barking, just for you...

waldorf.spreadshirt.net/de/DE/Shop/Article/Index/article/Guru-Rudolf-Steiner-3855381

waldorf.spreadshirt.net/de/DE/Shop/Article/Index/article/ATLANTIS---BELIEVE-5733678

Northern wrote: "As to liking the people who lie to you Margaret, it's a strange sense one gets, beacuse we still see people occasionally; they are slightly shifty."

Northern, at least this woman wasn't one of the people who was cruel to my daughter. She is the daughter of Anthroposophists. I'm able to feel more sympathy for people who were raised in cults from early childhood than I am for people who get sucked in during adulthood. There's an amazing and disturbing novel about this subject called "Survivor" by Chuck Palahniuk (same guy who wrote the novel "Fight Club").

Northern at those tee-shirts!!

Powerofjoy - yes when we got involved in Steiner we didn't even have internet access. Also, at that time I actually liked the idea of them saying grace before meals and the verses and lighting a candle. I thought it was an antidote to all the things I didn't like about modern childhood so, again, I wasn't looking in any suspicious way at all.

Oh Northern - that is so funny and disturbing at the same time. I almost want one......so I can wear it while I'm busy typing on threads like these to help people spiritually 'wake up' to all that is true of steiner.

That is why I don't buy into Sune's 10 year groping elephants in the dark story.

You are either 'awake' or your not.

Simple

Oh. My. God. HOW many times did I hear that phrase 'they're too awake' about my boys and their contemporaries in KG and class 1. The very qualities which other schools would prize, were the ones which Steiner saw as a problem. They wanted dreamy, head in the clouds, quiet,
children and others were a problem. In some instances the teachers were so unprepared for REAL children that they allowed very dangerous situations to arise.

Janni - ah yes the coming off the rainbow, slowly waking up like little flowers - yes the little Sophia's of the world, quietness and stillness equating with goodness.

Time to light a candle everyone.......

Yes that's it hold the space, gather oneself...............

Oh how we love to see the light.....