The article I have posted below was linked to the other week on the steiner thread 3 and as a result it would appear Thebee has managed to spook mumnet into banning:
Zzooey
PeteK
DianaW
PowerofJoy
Easeonline
Myself and Northernrefugee have asked repeatedly why but have had no clear reply other than talk of a 'crusade' which is the very same word Thebee (Sune Nordwall) has used in the page below.
I have asked about the possibility of taking out liability insurance so myself and others are able to speak truthfully and freely on a subject we feel strongly about.
I don't understand how other members of mumsnet are allowed to speak only on one topic and not be banned, one recent example is the Alphamummy thread.
Neither do I understand why we have had no response to our request to have these people reinstated when other posters on mumsnet have been allowed to come back for far more serious crimes. All we have ever done is speak the truth.
I find it so disappointing that for anyone interested in alternative/progressive/natural education will no longer have access to these threads as much of the information and our experiences have been deleted from the threads.
It would appear that mumsnet believes a 58 year old childless man who seems to have dedicated the last 10 years of his life into controlling information on the web about steiner/waldorf/anthoposphy. I believe the article below is a set up to provoke a big reaction from both mumnet and the fellow posters that were banned.
Can someone please be kind enough to explain what the ban is about and how we can get this very important subject back up and running please.
The article is below, so you can make your own mind up:
From www.thebee.se/comments/MN.html
Some comments on discussions of Steiner Waldorf education at Mumsnet
Since 2007, "Northernrefugee39", an intense talkative professed atheist, socialist and republican, and former Steiner Waldorf mother in the U.K, with very little patience for what she thinks are "boring" discussions, has been pursuing a persistent anti Steiner school crusade at Mumsnet.
She has posted in all threads she has found where she has been able to find any possibility to express her antipathy towards Steiner Waldorf education, from threads having nothing to do as such with Steiner Waldorf education, to threads discussing Steiner Waldorf education in general, to all discussions of one or other specific waldorf school in the U.K.
INTERNET TROLLING CAMPAIGN
When she later this year has tried to pursue her anti-Waldorf crusade also in other parenting forums on the net, she has been less successful and has been banned for trolling at a number of them.
This is the case at the Green Parent forum, where she, like at Mumsnet, tried to pursue her anti-Waldorf crusade in all Waldorf threads she could find, but soon was banned for her aggressive trolling. The BBC parenting forum did not like her aggressive anti-Steiner trolling either but deleted a number of her postings and banned her from further discussions. When she has pursued a similar anti-Steiner trolling campaign at Mothering in the U.S., she has been banned from further participation in the Waldorf discussions there too.
WC
In support of her anti-Waldorf trolling crusade at Mumsnet she has been joined by some fellow members of an anti-Waldorf mailing list in English on the net, "waldorf critics" (WC), where she participates.
The list is owned by the secretary since long of a small anti-Waldorf fringe group in California, "PLANS Inc.", much rooted in his efforts since the end of the 1980s to actively spread secular humanism in the San Francisco Bay Area.
When the large web portal DMOZ in 2001 looked at the site of the group, it decided that it did not qualify and deleted it from its Waldorf category as "informational" source on Steiner Waldorf education.
After Altavista looked closer at the site of the group two years later, in 2003, it took the drastic action to complertely delete all links to it from its web index as "informational" site on Steiner Waldorf education and refused to publish any sponsored ad from overture.com for searches on "waldorf", "waldorf education", and "Rudolf Steiner", regardless of their origin, to get rid of the ads for PLANS for the searches..
In contrast to this judgement by DMOZ and Altavista of the site as "informational" source on Steiner Waldorf education, Northernrefugee39 in the discussions at Mumsnet repeatedly recommends its disinformation on Steiner Waldorf education as "information" on Waldorf education.
For a description of the group, see here.
For a shorter introductory description of the origin, nature, history and argumentation of the group, that started its anti-Waldorf campaign ten years ago supporting allegations that "Waldorf schools teach the pupils witchcraft", see Americans for Waldorf Education
For a summary on the group and its activities the last ten years, see Americans for Waldorf Education too.
The main anti-Waldorf argumentation of Northernrefugee39 and other waldorf critics in the thread that they occupy at Mumsnet - and where they bully everyone who does not agree with them - is that Steiner Waldorf schools don't give children a good education.
WORLD CONSPIRACY MYTH...
Instead they - according to Northernrefugee39 - in secret indoctrinate the pupils with anthroposophy, the spiritually oriented philosophy that constitutes the general basis of Waldorf education, with the goal - according to Northern - of making them into a "spiritually superior group".
Her argument is part of a slightly paranoid, since long cultivated and published myth by the WC-group - an "Anthroposophical World Conspiracy" myth. According to the myth, the secret goal of Steiner Waldorf education - not told to the parents - is to train the future rulers of the world, which seems to stand in contrast to the alleged failure of the schools to even teach the pupils to read and write properly ...
For an introduction to actual Waldorf education and how it is related to anthroposophy, see Waldorf Answers.
For a more detailed description of Waldorf education, see the Wikipedia article on the subject.
The arguments by "critics" of Steiner Waldorf education at Mumsnet is based much on the slower way the pupils during the first grades at the schools are brought from a play stage of childhood over stories in different forms, from myths to nature stories, up to the present time, and the slower way first writing and then reading is taught at Waldorf schools during the first years at school, which at Waldorf schools start for the children at age 7, and the way they learn reading more at their own pace without pressure, at times only reading fully without effort at age 10 or 11.
The contrast is especially great during the earlier years at Steiner Waldorf schools in relation to how reading is taught, not least in schools in the U.K., where primary school education is compulsory already from age 5, and children most commonly enter reception class at age 4 in the academic year in which they will reach their 5th birthday.
The suspicion and allegation by critics is that Steiner Waldorf schools therefore do not give the pupils a good education but - from a marked outspoken atheist perspective - are a sort of covert religious parochial schools, who don't through eight or twelve years give their pupils a good education but instead indoctrinate them with anthroposophy. This is contradicted by among other things the numerous parents, who through the years have chosen a Waldorf school for their children, and a number of the pupils who have gone there. (At present there exist 900+ Steiner Waldorf schools incl. adult education, world wide)
ACTUAL WALDORF PARENTS AND PUPILS
To the group of the numerous present or former Steiner Waldorf parents belong among other Helmut Kohl, former German Chancellor, Heinz Galinski, Auschwitz survivor and former President of the Central Jewish Council in Germany, Karl Otto Pöhl, former President of German Federal Bank for nine years, Walter Riester, former German Minister of Labour, Otto Schily, former German Minister of the Interior and President by Seniority of German Federal Parliament, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, former German Minister of Foreign Affairs, Eugen Wagner, former Senator, Hamburg Ernst-Jörg von Studnitz, former German Ambassador to Russia, Knut Frydenlund, former Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Thorvald Stoltenberg, former Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jonas Gahr Støre, present Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Among former Waldorf parents one also finds Wolfgang Sauer, former President of Volkswagen in Brasil, Erwin Neher, Nobel Laureate in medicine 1991, Gilbert M. Grosvenor (1875-1966), President & Chairman, National Geographic Society, Clifford Stoll, astronomer, co-developer of the Internet, Russell Schweickart, Apollo 9 astronaut, NASA Astronaut Technical Advisor, California Energy Commission, Eric Utne, founder of, publisher, and former editor-in-chief of Utne Reader (now Waldorf teacher), Mikhail Baryshnikov, well known Russian ballet dancer and actor, Robert Jungk, Austrian writer and journalist, Harvey Keitel, Jessica Lange and Sam Shepard, George Lucas, (director, Star Wars), Clint Eastwood and Frances Fisher, André Previn, conductor, composer, pianist, Rosie O'Donnell, comedian, television talk show host, author, 11 times Emmy Award winner, Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman.
To the group of former Waldorf pupils belong the former Presidential candidate John Kerry and his sister Diana (implied by Diana Kerry in an interview in der Tagesspiegel in 2004 about the time they spent in Berlin in the 1950's, when their father worked there as diplomat at the American Consulate), Kenneth Chenault, former President and present Chief Executive Officer of American Express, Jens Stoltenberg, Prime Minister of Norway, Andreas Carlgren, Swedish Minister for the Environment, Prof. Dr. Wolfram Achtnich, plant cultivation scientist, Scott Boman, American libertarian politician, Mosemarie Boyd, President & CEO of "American Women Presidents", Prof. Dr. Wolf-Christian Dullo, Oceanographer, Konrad Schily, Member of the German Parliament; founder and former President of University Witten-Herdecke, Andreas Schleicher, Inventor of the Programme for International Student Assessment, Head of the Indicators and Analysis Division (Directorate for Education) OECD, Karl Matthäus Schmidt, CEO of quirin bank (a German bank specialized in Private Banking, Corporate Banking and Business Process Outsourcing).
Other former Waldorf pupils are Freimut Duve, politician and journalist; former member of German Parliament, Olaf Feldmann, former member of the German Parliament, Pekka Haavisto, member of the Finnish Parliament, former Finnish Minister of Environment, Hans-Peter Lehmann, former director of the State Opera in Hannover, Victor Navasky, Professor of journalism, Columbia University, former editor and now publisher emeritus of "The Nation", Kristen Nygaard, Professor of informatics, co-inventor of object orientated programming, Michael Rogowski, Vice President of the Federal Association of the German Industry "BDI", former President of BDI, Aram Roston, CNN and newspaper reporter, George Hume, BBC journalist and newspaper columnist for Herald Tribune and other British papers, Joern G. Stegen, Diplomat (retired), working with the Council of Europe for 38 years, Oras Tynkkynen, member of the Finnish Parliament, Linn Ullmann, internationally acclaimed writer and journalist, daughter of Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman, Jennifer Aniston, winner of Golden Globe, Julianna Margulies, nominated for 6 Golden Globes, Sandra Bullock, screen actress, Rutger Hauer, screen actor, winner of Golden Globe, Michael Ende, one of the most popular and famous German authors of the 20th century ("Momo", "The Neverending Story"), Ari Behn, writer, husband of Princess Märtha Louise of Norway, Barbara Becker, actress, ex-wife of Boris Becker, Timothy Daly, actor, Chris Elliott, screen actor and TV-entertainer, Anna Paquin, actor, Academy Award winner for Best Supporting Actress in "The Piano", to mention a few.
For some more of the many distinguished Waldorf parents and pupils from different walks of life in different countries, see here.
MORE COMMENTS
For some comments on Waldorf education by some of the Waldorf parents/pupils mentioned above, and some others, like Selma Lagerlöf, 1909 Swedish Nobel Literature Laureate, Albert Schweizer, 1952 Nobel Peace Laureate, Stefan Zweig (1881-1942), author, and Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986), Russian film director (Solaris, Stalker, Nostalghia, The Sacrifice), see the site of Waldorf Answers that also addresses a number of the myths about Waldorf education cultivated in the Mumsnet discussions.
The comments mentioned and the numerous Waldorf parents who have chosen a Waldorf education for their children through the 20th century world wide - clearly only a very small sample is mentioned above - put what Northernrefugee39 (and her fellow companeros from the mailing list of the WC anti-Waldorf fringe group) write at Mumsnet in a sobering perspective.