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!!

Yeah, even Anthroposophists laugh at him behind his back... - Nobody really wants anything to do with him - other than his AWE pals...

Good grief I still haven't got it - maybe I should go back to first grade and practice walking a straight line

www.marinwaldorf.org/curr_curriculumoverview.htm

I love this - "The straight and curved line are then practiced through walking, drawing in the air and sand, on the blackboard and finally, on paper."

Finally? on paper? What, by Easter? By Easter, kids, you'll be drawing straight lines on paper, after months of practicing drawing them in the sand!

God, Zooey, how did you survive this? It's child abuse to do something like this to an intelligent child.

It comes from the notion that, prior to the much hailed "change of teeth" in the approximately 7 year old, the child is really not "here" on earth at all - not yet fully "incarnated." According to anthroposophy, the child spends pretty much the first 7 years in this "incarnating" process, also sometimes referred to as "growing down" into his or her body.

The result of this is that much of first grade is a holding pattern - most of the kids aren't 7 yet, and have to be prevented from doing anything academic most of the year, doing things like drawing lines in the sandbox.

Read that again closely and if you have a sprinkling of anthroposophical knowledge, it reads interestingly:

"First Grade is a bridge between the kindergarten and the grades. With the second dentition, children have completed the formation of their physical bodies and are ready to begin to work with their minds. The mood of the classroom is no longer that of the kindergarten. The children have now arrived ready to take up the tasks of the first grade curriculum."

Let's parse this: "First Grade is a bridge between the kindergarten and the grades." In other words, this isn't going to be a real first grade, it's going to be a holding pattern.

"Children have completed the formation of their physical bodies" - say what? They have? Six or seven year olds have completed their physical bodies? In anthroposophy, incarnation proceeds in 7-year stages. The first stage, birth of the "physical body," one of the "four members" of the human in anthroposophy, is complete at age 7. Around age 7 is the birth of the "etheric body." That's what this peculiar notion means.

The children have now arrived . . ." this sounds quaint but they mean in literally. Parents may think their child has already been around for seven years, but no! The child does not really arrive SPIRITUALLY until age 7 in anthroposophy. "Arrive" is not a metaphor.

Funny how that web site presents all this without giving parents the needed information - anthroposophical information - to make sense of it.

Yet, you see, they'll claim that their web sites and brochures are full of information on anthroposophy, they feel they're very straightforward.

You just have to understand the code. Obviously most parents don't.

It's as if I were to basically copy Zooey's blog, set up another site with the same style and most of the same content, call it "the American Zooey" and then invite Zooey to be an "associate member." Well, first run and find at least one other American, so we could call it American. Well, these people aren't famed for clever real-world ideas.

Pete Thanks for coming on this discussion, and confirming everyone's opinion of bee.

I think anyone who reads this, (and I should think most people won't, because bee has turned it into some personal vitriol session)
realises who is the fanatical, obsessed strange childless old man, hell bent on protecting his guru's pseudo religion.

The parents with real experiences, and there are more and more of them all over the net, are the ones people listen to.

Bee, you just don't answer questions do you?
Why are you stalking me around the net?
Are you so afraid of my story?
Do you want to supress the facts?

Diana- like the Freudian slipin "watch" they can't see past their own noses...

bee you said

""Teachers are trained to direct the children's attention away from the real apparent world towards concealed levels of truth"

Paranoid rubbish."

This was said by a steiner teacher who was disillisioned in a big way with her training!

Want to tell that to her?

Have you done the training too ?

bee why are you putting xxxxx in front of my nickname?

"What* is your reason?

Please could you tell me?

I've asked you I can't remeber how many times not to.

It has an effect on my children.

bee- so all the other things the steiner trained teacher says are true I assume you'll agree. Except for directing children to see hidden truths.

This is how anthroposohy in schools is used

A transcript of a teacher who trained at a Steiner college-

"the teachers are trained to hide it.

Because the sole purpose of the education is to guide the children's souls to reincarnate towards a time when supernatural spiritual beings will manifest themselves.
The education is suppose to lead towards the right training, to empower the children's souls, and help develop clairvoyant powers in order to communicate with the spirit world."

I suppose you're all very envious of me now, I went to waldorf and learned to see the difference between a straight and curved line. Very complicated, but can be accomplished through eurythmy.

Knowing how to recognize a curve is a skill that can't be overestimated as to its importance. Suppose you have a driver's licence - which I don't, but I realize with my skills, I definately have the prerequisite knowledge and more - and, well, there's a curve on the road when you drive. Or imagine spiral staircases. All children before they start waldorf in 7th grade, they just fall off the staircases, bacause they don't know about the straight-/curve distinction

How I survived, I don't know, really I still am not very good at walking straight.

I remember the copper rods were used to walk straight, like on them. It's all just so mind-numbingly stupid and boring. I think we kept walking like that for year after year, but my memories are blurred. I remember boredom!

And the damn form-drawing. If someone forced me to do that now I would punch them very hard. Once or twice, yeah, it's ok - but it went on for ever!!

• zooey, who can't even sit straight on a chair.

This is the amazon description of Knowledge of Higher worlds and It's Attainment, which is on the reading list for Steiner teacher training...

"Synopsis
Here is the classic translation of Steiner's foundational guide to the spiritual path. It is a manual for attaining suprasensory knowledge of the invisible and opens new perspectives on one's essential purpose in life. In 1904, Rudolf Steiner first made this account of the Western esoteric path of initiation public. With great precision, he carefully leads us from the cultivation of the fundamental soul attitudes of reverence and inner tranquility to inner development through the stages of preparation, illumination, and initiation. Practical exercises in inner and outer observation and moral development are given. By patiently and persistently following these, new organs of soul and spirit begin to form that reveal the contours of the higher worlds hitherto concealed from us."

So bee- is this what the teachers are expected to do? To follow these exercises to reveal the higher worlds?
And how exactly are they meant to put this into practice when teaching our kids?
How is this relevant?

And if it's not relevant, why is it on the reading list atall?

Please no links,to your sites, just answers to these questions......

What is Waldorf Education

Waldorf or Rudolf Steiner education is based on an anthroposophical view and understanding of the human being, that is, as a being of body, soul and spirit. The education mirrors the basic stages of a child's development from childhood to adulthood, which in general reflects the development of humanity through history from our origin, far back in past times up to the present.

The central focus for the Waldorf teacher is the development of that essence in every person that is independent of external appearance, by instilling in his/her pupils an understanding of and appreciation for their background and place in the world, not primarily as members of any specific nation, ethnic group or race, but as members of humanity and world citizens.

Thus, the Waldorf kindergarten cultivates and works in support of the pre-school child's deep, inborn natural attitude, belief and trust in and basic reverence for the world as an interesting and good place to live in.

In the Älower grades in elementary school, this leads over to more of a stress on using artistic elements in different forms (rhythm, movement, color, form, recitation, song, music), not primarily as a means of personal self expression, but as a means to learn to understand and relate to the world, building an understanding for different subjects out of what is beautiful in the world in the broadest sense of the word.

And in the upper grades and high school, this leads in steps to an ever more conscious cultivation of an observing, reflecting and experimental scientific attitude to the world, focusing on building an understanding of what is true, based on personal experience, thinking and judgment.

The goal of Waldorf or Rudolf Steiner education is to enable students as fully as possible to choose and, in freedom, to realize their individual path through life as adults.

While anthroposophy forms the philosophical and theoretical basis of the teaching methods used in Waldorf schools and is reflected in the attitudes of many Waldorf teachers and in the general structuring and orientation of Waldorf education during the different stages of development, anthroposophy is not taught as such to the students in the overwhelming majority of Waldorf schools world wide.

If anthroposophy is taught in some form by an individual teacher, it is done against the basic Waldorf tradition and in complete contradiction of the intention of Waldorf education, as expressed by Rudolf Steiner as the founder of Waldorf education.

For more, see Frequently Asked Questions about Waldorf education

(And I wrote most of that.)

Zooey

"I suppose you're all very envious of me now, I went to waldorf and learned to see the difference between a straight and curved line. Very complicated, but can be accomplished through eurythmy.

Well, they try lamely to suggest this is a basis for learning to write the alphabet. How about just teaching them to write the alphabet? It is bound to involve drawing a few straight and curved lines, so it does seem to me both these important pedagogical goals could be mastered at the same time.

Of course I'm being sarcastic. The thing has many layers of meaning and purposes. One important goal is focusing the children on drawing the letters as opposed to learning to write. These are two very different things. Insisting children go into some kind of reverie or trance over the aesthetic qualities of the letters of the alphabet is actually a way to slow them down in simply learning to read. It sounds really nice, a sort of year-long romance with the alphabet in the first grade, in fact it's a simple hindrance to progress. It's a common complaint among Waldorf parents that their children can "draw" their letters but not actually "write" them. It's deliberate.

"How about just teaching them to write the alphabet?"

Why take the easy way? Especially when the more complicated way provides the eurythmists with an outlet for their sadistic leanings.

No, but as you say, it's not about teaching kids to read and write. They just want it to look that way.

Zooey, you are so funny

I don't think we want to be Asians, though, they're spiritually adolescent according to Steiner, remnants of devolved races.

There does seem to be a years-long fixation with straight lines. What is supposed to be so darn important about drawing a straight line? In another school, you'd be allowed to use a ruler to make a straight line, and get on with your life.

I remember I made a response to that text - or part of it - by thebee on the last thread.

Its a text devoid of any real meaning. Much like waldorf education. It's crap. BS like that requires religious reverence and awe to believe it.

And it was funny because she begged him please, no link, and he replies 20 minutes later with a link. He's stuck, he replies like a robot. He poured his soul into those web sites, in order to spend the rest of his life quoting himself and linking to himself. Perhaps some day he will have a new thought, or decide to try conversing with people in the real world.

My answer was only secondarily to Northernrefugee39 and primarily to the non-WC people who read this thread, though there don't seem to be many nowadays.

... I'm not up for endless discussions neither with xxxxx, nor with you. I have other things to do.