STEINER WALDORF SCHOOLS AND INSTITUTIONS #2

[zzooey]

The steiner waldorf thread ran to a halt because apparently a 1000 messages are a maximum. Let's continue here!!

"Which postulate?"
"Take your pick."
Nonsense - just what I thought.
"You've lost me already..."
"Can't lose something I didn't have."
Huh?
"What do you care do discuss?"
"Nothing."
Clearly
"And what truth do you feel I'm backing away from?"
"Prejudice is not efficient."
Again... Huh? Are you suggesting, then, that I have somehow made the opposite claim... that prejudice is efficient? Can you show me where? Oh wait... you're not going to discuss anything, you're going to make that claim without backing it up. What a surprise.

You're right, of course Zzooey - I keep forgetting that simple truth

Message withdrawn

Milliec - they will only let you see what they want to see at the great perfomance of a recruitment day open day.
It's all very enchanting, there will probably be an organic cafe, a pizza oven, some beardy folk playing a harp, pony rides, wooden crafts, a fairy/gnome grotto etc. The stage is truly set.

If you have the time just turn up on any school day and start wondering around, see how far you get.

In the meantime you may want to read warm and woolly

Hi Milliec,

Wandering around might not be a bad idea. Talk to parents. Definitely, go to the dog-and-pony show day too. It will give you a clear picture of what the rest of us were sucked into.

Janni, I so agree about the natural authority bit... some of the boys at the school ours were used to swear blind at the teachers, and refuse to do anything they were told.
Anything less like natural authority than Steiner teachers.

it was meant to go like

initiation friendly fishing open day
includes anthroposophy too

yes, I heard 11 -12 year olds using the f-word and the c-word to the games teacher and they were NOT excluded from the lesson...in the regular schools my children now attend there is NO WAY that would be tolerated.

I'm just curious. Did anyone during their Steiner daze have astrological 'indications', or even archetypes chucked at them? I did, but curiously, they tended to come from the wannabes rather than the oligarchs. I know perfectly well that most workplaces have at least one person who plays at having this kind of 'insight'. You know what I mean: "I think you are Libra.
No
Oh, you must be Pisces then.
Nope.
Capricorn?
And so on until, eventually:- Sagitarius?
Yep.
AAhhh... I thought so."
I mention the wannabes in that it eventually seemed to me that newcomers to staff, while knowing naff all about Anthroposophy, even if they have heard the word, desperately needed to declaim their acceptance of "The Beyondness of Things"
(That's a recent John Barry composed album- I love the music, and the title). I admit I did.
I can't say I came across it being used as a manipulative tool much (apart from the wannabes that is) but I do have a clear recollection of someone charging onto the critics list with all sorts of warnings, but mostly, everyone better watch out: she was Leo, with seven planets in Scorpio!!!
She lasted a week, maybe two.
I don't think she cared much what anyone else thought, but by God, she was impressed.
Davy

Since this damned toothache seems determined that sleep will come no time soon, maybe a wee anecdote is ok. You don't have to read it, but at least it will pass some time for me
To a certain extent, I was farearmed prior to joining the workforce. My degree is in The Humanities, with the greater part being History of Religion. I was never a Jesus freak or anything, but have long been interested in who massacred who- all in God's (or Gods') name of course.
Anyway, as my exposure to Anthroposophy increased, so did my awareness of 'kinks' in some of the stuff where I kind of recognised the origins. Without thinking about it too much, I came to asking questions that the seniors would have much preferred to stand unasked.
This was where the wannabes kicked in. I am Aquarius, so that meant I was "too much in the head" to use the Anthrospeak term. It just meant that I thought too much for myself, and didn't give enough blind acceptance or dumb acquiescence.
Then some bright spark realised that in the Chinese system, I was born in a Year of the Rat, and that became the counter to my awkward questions:- rat, rat, rat.
After a couple of years of this a wannabe shot himself in the foot. He lent me a copy of Suzanne White's 'New Astrology'. (It's not an Anthro publication) In that book I discovered that Year of the Rat comes first in the cycle. The rat in question isn't the disease carrying pest of the city. Rather it is the clever, industrious, resourceful rat of the countryside. The place of honour stems from the time Buddha called all the animals of the world. Only twelve answered the call, and of those Rat was first.
I related this once, (together with something like:"so suck on that karma buddy") and was hardly ever called a rat again.
So, while I'm (hopefully) not given to vanity more that anyone else, I now find it a compliment to be called 'Rat': I just fling this wee story back at people who are so minded.
Anyway, I'd rather be a rat than a f*wit.
Davy

I once met a Steiner teacher from another school at a social event. He shook my hand very fervently and immediately asked me my star sign.

I thought he was odd, but didn't know that was in any way normal for Steiner folk ??

I heard "archetypes" mentioned frequently at our Waldorf school. One teacher, in particular, was always prattling on about them.

I attended a sample high school history class for parents. The charismatic history teacher brought up the subject of astrology, with a request for us to be open minded about it. I didn't understand the point he was making about astrology, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I considered the possibility that he was introducing it from a historical point of view as something that influenced people's thinking in ancient times, although nothing he said indicated that. This is how so much nonsense sailed past my critical faculties. I just figured that Waldorf must have some good reason for weird stuff that didn't make sense to me.

"I thought he was odd, but didn't know that was in any way normal for Steiner folk ??"

I'm not sure that it is Janni, but it can happen. maybe it's something ro lean on until one is sucked in enough to be introduced to The Temperaments?
Power, do you have any notion of how seasoned this teacher was?

The teacher's parents were Anthroposophists who founded the school 50 years ago. Sometime after graduating the school, he did a stint in the military (during the Vietnam era) and then returned to be a teacher at the school. I think that makes him well seasoned!

have missed bit here, but one of my daughter's teachers used star signs and temperaments, my husband questioned him about it once and he was quite surpriesed, as if everyone used astrology.

Ease/Davy
"Anyway, I'd rather be a rat than a f*wit."
(My kids have had pet rats, they're very intelligent sweet creatures actually)

Aw gee-ta! Unless you specifically prohibit it, methinks to take this personally!
Anyway, according to Chinese astrologers- and maybe Buddha- you are quite right.
Glad to see you are keeping healthier company these days

Actually, my kids are clamouring for more rats as hey saw some at the weekend! AARRGGhhh!

Look at this from Rudi, about how a child should be educated
"Yes, those who speak like this should just try how they can make school all joy for the children, so that the children laugh all the time, so that learning is play and at the same time they are learning something. This is the very best possible educational principle for ensuring that nothing at all is learnt.
The right thing is for teachers to be able to handle what does not give the child joy, but perhaps a good deal of toil and woe, in such a way that the child as a matter of course submits to it. "

Nice eh?

No wonder there's little joy and laughter in the schools, Steiner's direction to teachers is that they're able to handle toil and woe!
Bof!

"Submits" is a creepy word too. A definite indication of cultish thinking.

Yes it is, the sublimation to power..,eugh...

Interestingly, this was discussed on an unnamed US site for mothers, whose rules don't allow talking about it anywhere else.
When this statement from Steiner was posted there, someone said they thought it was positive, that teachers help children to accept negative feelings and aren't there to deal with their happines, but to handle the hard things.
It was really written from the hand of someone so brainwashed that they believed it, and were able to twist it to fit.

Yes it is, the sublimation to power..,eugh...

Steiner also said that the teacher should be held in "reverential awe" by the children.
Respect is something that maybe should be a 'given' imho, but reverential awe? this, I think speaks again of the karmic relationship between the teacher and the pupil outweighing that of the parent and child. I have been in the position many times of being cast as a substitute father (Scout Leader close by a Royal Navy facility) but I ever distanced myself from that, knowing that the time would come when a particular situation would arise that only Dad could address, and I couldn't have filled that role. Anyway if Dad wasn't around, the next best was Mum.
From my time as a single parent, I'm antirely happy that it works the other way round too.
What do we make of people who aspire to 'reverential awe' ie imho, infalability.?

Exactly . It's not only the fact that the children are meant to have this sort of "worship" and fear attitude to the teacher, but what does that do to the teacher him/herself?
Very unhealthy aspiration to power if you ask me.
There was much of it at the school where ours were, an unnatural enjoyment of this position. And a power which is so easy to abuse; even in small ways but often in big ways.
Steiner didn't talk much about humility and acceptance did he?
And this is seen so much in the attitude of the anthroposophists I know.

Respect, yes, at least to a certain degree. But not unconditional. Healthy disrespect is sometimes a good thing, at least if it's the result of independent thinking and a critical attitude--things that should be encouraged in children. (How else are they going to be able to stand up against people who want to treat them badly?)

Reverential awe... that's quite another thing. The whole idea of it disgusts me. Children should not feel reverential awe towards their teachers. The teachers are just human beings who can be wrong. It's psychologically absolutely wrong to think children should harbour any such teacher-is-god-feelings.

Would anyone mind if I explored how the panel of experts of Anthroposophy responded to the FAQ (as described here?

go for it