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!!

Yep, lucky guy, Northern

Caterpillar - our experience was similar to that described by Northern. It can be very difficult if you have more than one child at the school and they have different start/finish times. In my experience, nothing was set up for the convenience of the parents.

And it always got to me that hey wanted money at every turn, but if you apologised for not being able to do a gardening job because of work, it was really frowned upon.

BTW this is one of the funniest threads I've ever participaed on mumsnet
My dh is craking up. he often wonders what keeps me on here for so long.....

northernrefugee39 an janni -maybe it's because it comes from germany where th kids look after themselves after school? doesnt help you, i know ;)

catepilarr,

The kids don't need "looking after" at Steiner school, they have guardian angels to do that.

Theree were alot of families who left quite young kids alone at home at the school ours went to, it used to shock me....I thought they were really casual about it, until I realised they totally believed in guardian angels and karma.

what i ment was, that whereas in england generally kids are picked up from school and not left alone at home, in germany or czech rep it is fairly normal for children of primary age /6+/ to come home after school and be on their own until the parents come home. thats why it is so difficult for parents in england to work around it because the school hours /system comes from a different cultural backround.

ps. lived in a german anthroposophz oriented family for a year but never heard of guardian angels in that way. how interesting.

Oh I see. Gosh, that's very unusual , to leave kids alone at that age; I actually think it's against the law in UK isn't it?

I think anthroposophy is more "mainstream" in Germany, more people are anthroposophists. And there are more Steiner schools; obvious really since they origionated there. But I also know that they don't talk about anthroposophy unless they feel you are open to their beliefs, or ready to be helped onto the spiritual path. This was certainly the case in the anthroposophic community where our kids went to school.

From Northern's mothering quote
"... preparing a simple altar as a powerful symbol for your birth."

Isn't it a bit too late for that? Or is it some sort of spiritual re-birth?

On being home alone--yes, waldorf schools seem to end school-day early, I remember that was quite an issue. The same goes for kindergarten. First, they don't have childcare for children younger than 4. Second, even after that, the kids need to be picked up at 1 pm, latest. Now, this was when I was a kid, ie, a while ago. This is all a bit weird, seeing that the reason for day care is for the parents to be able to go to work.

I don't think it's that uncommon for kids to be home alone after school when they're 7 or older. 6 perhaps not.

They had half day school or ages at the school ours were. Many of the parents were self employed, didn't work, were Camphill parents so were at home any way, or had co workers, students, to babysit, or were teachers in some capacity at the school. people like us, who were self employed and sometimes had rushes of work, were in the minority, and if we couldn't make a work day, or a shift at envelope stuffing, sometimes from 8-11 in the evening, we were frowned upon; a definite atmosphere....but we paid over the odds for fees, more than we were meant to because we were so constantly asked.

Does anyone know Steiner schools in Suffolk/Norfolk?

Northern, Janni, Pete, Diana, or anyone else:-
I know this will seem like a daft question, but it came up in conversation with a fellow outcast :
We were chatting about all the wacko treatments, meds, remedies and the like we had encountered, when we got to laughing about anthroposophical dentistry. Then we realised that for all we had never encountered such a thing, that didn't mean that no such discipline exists.
Has anyone ever heard of anything like eurythmy for raging toothache?
Personally, my own experience is that the quickest remedy for a raging toothache is to welly yer thumb with a hammer, with all the f, b, and c words combining to conjure up some cosmic incantation that makes your tooth not hurt any more
But just in case anyone has heard of anthro dentistry...
Davy

Woops Zooey.I missed you out Probably you are the most likely to know of any such thing.
Davy

Hi...I hope noboody minds me just joining in this discussion? I found it the other day ...a few days before my husband and I were to visit a Steiner school in Wales for our 3 year old. I decided not to mention any of the scary things I read about to hubby..or to think about them myself as I wanted SO badly to have found the right school. Well! We were to be blunt, freaked out by what we saw. The kindergarten building was SCARY! Cave like and with little daylight due to the tiny round windows...it was purpose built and when we walked in there was a strangely overwhelming atmosphere that we still cannot put our fingers on..what WAS that? I actually almost burst into tears in the first minute of being there for reasons which I still could not explain..the teachers were intense and the kids subdued....my daughter was unimpressed with the all natural toys and wanted to get out of the place. What's with the colour scheme? Does it have some signifigance? All those watery peachy pinks and the covered up lights on the walls? It felt very odd...there were paintings of Knights and dragons on the walls and to be honest it was like being in a Stephen King or JAmes Herbert novel....can anyone enlighten me as to why the atmosphere was so strange?

"Has anyone ever heard of anything like eurythmy for raging toothache? "

Well, curative Eurythmy is prescribed for straightening teeth that would normally need braces. Of course curative Eurythmy will take longer to straighten the teeth than braces, but by the time the child is 20, their teeth should be straight... that is, if they've been doing it right all those years. And, of course, if by 20 the teeth aren't straight... give it a couple of more years. Adults with braces are very fetching BTW.

Hi Anenome, and welcome!
You wrote:
Hi...I hope noboody minds me just joining in this discussion?"

Too late now...

"Cave like and with little daylight due to the tiny round windows...it was purpose built and when we walked in there was a strangely overwhelming atmosphere that we still cannot put our fingers on..what WAS that?"

Boredom?

"What's with the colour scheme? Does it have some signifigance?"

Oh YES. You can go into ANY Waldorf classroom - anywhere in the world... call me at home and all I need to ask you is what grade you are in before telling you the color of the room.

" All those watery peachy pinks and the covered up lights on the walls? It felt very odd...there were paintings of Knights and dragons on the walls and to be honest it was like being in a Stephen King or JAmes Herbert novel....can anyone enlighten me as to why the atmosphere was so strange?"

It's apparently appealing to people. The subdued lighting, covering of windows is intended to reduce stimulus to the children. The free-flowing EVERYTHING, un-square door and window frames... and the decor of knights and kings and crap... dolls without faces, (talk about Stephen King-like) - the lack of detail is intended to promote imagination in kids. It's not really good to have kids thinking about things they have seen - better for them to go inward to imagine everything they need.

Hello Anenome
I'd go along with Pete's message.
So far as the the atmosphere goes, might I suggest that what you encountered was an environment designed for reverence? If that seems close to what you found, I'd further suggest that it might help a bit were these places to indicate just what it is we are supposed to revere in the first place. Better clarify that what I'm getting at is indeed reverence- a good way beyond respect.
Whaddya think?
The wall colour is universal- in the nursery areas the peach/magnolia colour is there as being the same colour as human flesh according to Steiner, which raises a whole new can of worms should your family background have any conections from (say) south of the Alps/Danube, east of The Urals-maybe closer.
Davy

Thanks Pete and Easonline ...I think you're right Pete...it was somewhat "church-like" in that kindergarten room...the funny thing was that there was another Mother there on a visit and all of the kids were SO attracted to her and to myself...as if they sensed a different type of "energy"...indeed, the teachers were a bit like hippy Stepford Wives..on auto-pilot or something.
Also, the whole school and grounds had an air of neglect about it...overgrown vegetable patches and the grass on the roof of the purpose built kindy building was dead..it looked like it had been strimmed for our visit but the dead grass left there...I'm not sure why I feel the need to try and make sense of it all...maybe I feel like we had a lucky esape or maybe I feel like these schools need to be watched more closely by the authorities.

Can anyone tell me why there were curtained off alcoves in the kindergarten...with adult sized rocking chairs in them?

Hello Anenome. Great description of..every kindy I've ever been in!
Steiner meant the walls to be skin coloured. werr, yes, as ease/Davy says, not all skins of course..... There are some sickly quotes of his somewhere.
The children sound desperate for your normality and warmth I should think.
The atmosphere is often very unemotional ( emotions aren't "spiritual"), so not much laughter,or smiling, it's all bland , false calm.....

Davy, I know an anthroposohic family who travel about 160 mile round trip at £60 per session ( which they can really ill afford) to see a " natural" dentist- but whether or not that's anthroposophic I don't know.
The mother in the family was in tears when one of her kids had to wear glasses because of a squint, and also said that they wouldn't need to go to the dentist if they didn't eat honey( they aren't allowed sugar, so the kids steal honey from the jar).
This woman was severely ill on one occasion, with a really bad infection. She had blood pouring out of her ears according to her kids( who we drove to school every day). She holed herself up in her bedroom with herbal tea. They aren't registered with a doctor, and in the end, the dad drove her to casualty because he was so worried about her; but it was a secret- no-one was to be told she'd "sucummed" to modern medicine.

Northern...unemotional about hits the nail on the head...my husband tried talking to the main teacher and her lack of response was strange...she sort of had nothing to say...what I can't really understand is how people fall for it all after they visit? it was so obviously strange and "wrong" that we high tailed it out of there as fast as we could...do some people just fall for it bcause they are vulnerable perhaps? The first thing that struck me as wrong was all the pictures on the walls that the kids had done looked like they were done by the same person...I really feel for those kids

Anenome, the teacher had nothing that she wanted to say- that'a the way they avoid awkward questions, and that's how they teach, not answereing the kids, or deflecting the gist; it's meant to keep awake the sense of awe and reverence, for the kids, belief in fairies and gnomes etc. For the adults it's just avoiding answering....
We were lied to, about the anthroposophical nature of the education, and what was going on in the classroom. We were sold a lie basically, and it was perpetuated. Also, one so wants it to be ok, that really you're going for what the education isn't in a way; no tests, creative, etc etc. Once they're there, you so want it to be ok, and don't want to have to move the children again.
The art... copied washy stuff. Hardly any colours allowed, no lines allowed, to remind the kids of the spirit world they've recently come from of course....

Northern...the gnomes freaked me out...they looked so cute in their little wooden bowl and when I picked one up and saw it had no face...eeew! Also..I have to ask...do you know what story books the children get read to them? Are they allowed "normal" books...like The Tiger Who Came to Tea...or Cinderella? Or are the books all Steiner ones? I saw one called "The children of the forest" or similar..it had little toadstool hatted sprites or something on the cover..it looked very Steiner-ish...

"Can anyone tell me why there were curtained off alcoves in the kindergarten...with adult sized rocking chairs in them?"

Well, this is either where they strap the children when they are bad (just kidding, that only happened once, no wait twice ) or they take children in there to rock them when they are too energetic (probably).

"Also..I have to ask...do you know what story books the children get read to them?"

Certainly nothing modern. It will be Grimms or Anthroposophically themed stuff (comes to mind The 7 Year Old Wonder Book comes to mind).

The point is to implant archetypal images in the children's imagination. So knights and dragons (good and evil) prepare the kids for Michaelmas - the Steiner festival to Saint Mich-a-el. Grimms fairy tales provide plenty of these as well (and they especially seem to focus on the ones with the hapless father who would betray his own children for the love of a witch... but let's not get into that ).

"what I can't really understand is how people fall for it all after they visit? it was so obviously strange and "wrong" that we high tailed it out of there as fast as we could...do some people just fall for it bcause they are vulnerable perhaps?"

I think some people resonate with the mood, be it reverence or whatever, and feel that they have found a learning environment for their child that upholds the same ideals and/or values that they do:

"The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. The trite subjects of human efforts, possessions, outward success, luxury have always seemed to me contemptible."