waldorf steiner

[heninthemidden]

hi,

anyone had good experience of waldorf steiner education system?

The question over what the teacher believes in is relevant if that belief affects his or her educational decision making with regard to an individual child. There is a wealth of difference between a teacher's personal belief in reincarnation/the resurrrection of christ and deciding what to teach based on that belief.

A parent who does not hold religious/spiritual beliefs would not want the education of their child subject to something they hold to be irrelevant/dangerous.

If a school is not honest from the start how can you have any faith that what the teacher is teaching is not tinged with something you want to keep your child well away from until they are old enough to make a decision about it themselves.

If the school is not upfront about the methods in the school - KG are now required by the early years curriculum to have records of assessment and that assessment should exist to inform teaching relevant to child progress - how are parents to know whether their children are taught according to sound education theory or strange karmic interpretations. It all comes down to trust. Have to say the educational records could make interesting reading....may explain why the steiner movement is so opposed to the EYFS.

Isenhart You said 'Bully for you, MANATEE! Doth thou refer to Facial Feminization Surgery or Fat Finger Syndrome?' I replied with what can be considered a reasonable reply o such a load of crap!

Zazizoma I find it interesting that you know Steiner educated people that have gone on to work in science. However I am open to believe that experiences between schools vary.

And, my MAIN issue is not with the Steiner curriculum, but with the bullying, child abuse, and lack of child protection that occurs within Steiner Schools. I don't believe any of the 'pro-Steiner' people on this thread have addressed these very real issues.

I am really pissed off actually with INSENHART in partucular, (Isenhart, fuck off and troll elsewhere) who talks shit in the name of defending a system of education that has ignored a child being sexually abused. (That being the one I know of, and from my research into the crap that is Steiner ed, the child I know is not the only one by a long way.

MANATEE-FFS can stand for Facial Feminization Surgery or Fat Finger Syndrome. Sorry that you're mad! Ummm, that's what pissed off means, right?

Pissed off means angry. Or as you American's would call it, 'pissed'. But in England that means drunk.
Angry is a feeling one tends to feel when a school ignores a child that is being sexually abused and re-enacting that sexual abuse on other children. That anger can be magnified greatly when people defend the education system that was happy to cover this up. Although I must say it can be a rather laughable defense when the defender concentrates on abrieviations and over-use of the word 'doth'(which I believe is going the same way as the Cornish language)!!!

Insenhart how come you never post on any other threads on MN?????

MANATEE-I take it then that you are in England since you doth profess to be angry rather than mad. My advice to you dear, given the rest of your message, is perhaps you should lay off the sauce.

Isenhart how come you never post on any other threads on MN?????

Then for the love of Mike, Isenhart: will you lay off the Shakespeare!

MANATEE-perhaps because you only read this one!!!!!

Perchance, wilderduck-personally I think it'd be great if everyone layed off the third person and spoke to each other in non-abusive language. If I were a school I certainly wouldn't stand by and allow a child to verbally assault his mates with name calling and rude suggestions.

Manatee - Again, what you are describing is unacceptable in any educational setting. I understand and sympathise with your anger. I think that some of us are trying to address the issue, but we are not agreeing that SWE is the fundamental problem. I think the poor implementation of SWE, perhaps endemic in England, is the problem.

Alder - I am curious as to where you draw the line with regards to disclosure, just as I am very interested in wilder's response. Would an atheist parent want to ensure than none of her dc's teachers were Catholic? Since not all Steiner teachers believe in reincarnation, wouldn't it be impossible for a school to claim to disclose the personal beliefs of all their staff?

Re random . . . I know people who believe that life is a fortuitous accidental. I am not intending to comment on the evolutionary biology/intelligent design debate. I was simply attempting to illustrate that there is a wide range of belief systems or worldviews.

Cote - you have no imagination. Look up AutoCAD. Since my former student was at RISD, I imagine they were writing their own design software using trig functions in the rendering algorithm.

Zazizoma I agree with what you say completely, Steiner Schools are not run properly in England, Ofstead inspections just are not good enough regulations, especially given the non hierachal school structure. Unfortunately when something goes wrong this makes it all to easy to pass the blame, and pass it again etc.
And I also agree that the teaching of maths in Steiner is definitely a strength imo, and one of the aspects I WOULD like to see State picking up on. May I ask your connections to Steiner? I know you said you taught maths in Steiner, but when you say 'some of us are trying to adress the issue' is this as a teacher, or do you hold other positions within SWE. It gives me hope as you do seem logical, unlike some...

Isenhart I post on lots of threads/read lots of threads, and EVEN have a profile page that shows that! So....Isenhart How come you never post on other threads on MN?

Zazizoma

I did try to ensure that my children were in a secular school and didn't even look at CofE or Catholic schools (oh, the irony). Of course dc's have been taught by religious people who have given their views. I have no issue with this, so long as there is some kind of diversity and debate allowed.

When I joined a SWS I was assured that it was non-denominational. No one mentioned anthroposophy and though I know that R. Steiner had some wacky ideas regarding spirituality, I had NO IDEA that the whole education system was still directly informed by these ideas, that all of the festivals and rituals have their roots in anthroposophical beliefs.

To be honest the advent spiral doesn't bother me, the st Michael stuff doesn't bother me so long as I am openly allowed to say that I think it's ludicrous. The advent spirals were soooo long and boring. All these fidgety pre-schoolers having to watch 40 kids trawl round some greenery while their parents looked on dewy eyed, the Michaelmas Festival in KG was top secret (presumably so none of us could see our three year old dcs being crowned and handed a wooden sword )

But in a Steiner School you cannot say that these Festivals are bonkers because that is sacrilige (just as in a Roman Catholic school you're not going to say "A virgin? Yeah right ) ergo Steiner Schools are religious schools and should present themselves as such. Had I known this to be the case I would never have put my dc's in one. Surely this would have been better for everyone involved?

I'm happy for my kids to be taught by atheists, buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jews or any other major world religion. I just don't want them in a school where everyone involved has to cow tow to one specific belief. Anthroposphy imo is unbelievably bonkers (and if someone tries to teach my children intelligent design as a viable alternative to big bang and evolution you can bet I'll be ). Yes people have the right to their own beliefs but they do not have the right to set up schools founded on those beliefs and then use terms like non-denominational to describe themselves AND their spiritual beliefs cannot be used to justify the bullying, misinformation and a complete disregard for the laws of the country in which they operate.

Zazizoma

I agree with your 'unfolding individuality' interpretation of Steiner education. I gues this is what I thought I was getting. BUT to do this effectively there needs to be proper accountability and mentoring. One of the problems in my dd's class was as they got to the end of class 3, everyone had taken on these 'family' roles in the class. The kids who were seen as 'feisty' at 7 were still a handful... It seemed that everyone got locked into certain roles. I do see huge value in having a teacher get to know dcs well over a longer period of time - it makes for a much more personal and 'real' relationship-, but it wasn't without its pitfalls. It would be really interesting to see these practices evolve - I wondered if having a class teacher for 3 years and then swapping might not work better for everyone involved?

After all, the world has moved on and we all have much more contact with many more people and there are some definite advantages to this. I did really like having the same class teacher for a minimum of 2 years, in fact it makes so much sense to me now, that I think it would work everywhere - but 8 years was way too much.

Barking I think Sharons text is one way of looking at this.
Steiner said many times how glad he is that all the texts can be read by anyone and I think he would not have wanted to exclude you or any other Waldorf Critic. So where is this unexpressed, hidden whatever the WC'c are looking for.
May I suggest you take the trouble of finding out before you get dissapointed.
Would have saved you and all the wc's lots of trouble.

Barking, with Steiner you get what it says on the tin... but yes you do have to read a few books of course.
Generally it would be great to hear more positivity from WC'c. I think this would cause a more positiv and constructive debate.

Thecaty, I'm not part of the Waldorf Critics.

Maria - you make so many good points.

Most of the primary schools in our area are C of E so though not choosing our dcs school for any religious reason that's where they are. I absolutely agree with you that the private faith of my dcs teachers is their own privilege as long as it doesn't constitute a threat to the dcs in their class. And I have never felt it does. There is no secret made (plainly) of the religious affiliation of the school which I must say is very lightly felt. Nor do the staff have any problem with natural selection!
My dc had an earnest young teacher who made a comment suggesting they were 'Christian children'. As a child of rationalists he put up his hand to say (I hope politely) 'We're not Christian children, we're children. And we haven't made up our minds yet what we believe!' A point there to Professor Dawkins.
I can only imagine what dc would say to a teacher who called him 'phlegmatic'.
No, it is not right that Steiner schools are not honest about anthroposophy. And it is not right that Ofsted can't look through the wool and see the nonsense. When this results in abuse and mismanagement (as well as confusion, since it's v difficult to agree on the precise nature of nonsense) you are quite right to be angry.

Thecaty, seeing as we haven't had the pleasure of your company before on Mumsnet, I think it's only fair to the other posters here that you introduce yourself.
Or should I?

Indeed Barking .... thecat (y)
I think one of the funniest thing said about Steiner is in the review section of Amazon when a sincere 'spiritual seeker' says of a collection of Steiner's lectures: 'It is a shame that no one ever took the time to distill the wisdom of this genius so that it would be less tedious to read his books'.
With Steiner you get what it says on the tin... if it said 'ingredients gained through clairvoyance' on a tin of domestic fence varnish I'd worry my woodwork wouldn't last the Winter!

Love it Wilder

MANAREE-I don't post on other mumsnet threads for the same reason(s) that you don't. That's lovely that you have a profile page. This is quite possibly what keeps other posters from regularly making inquiries of you like, MANATEE- why is it that you are here posting as a mum when you're not? But one shouldn't need a profile to satisfy questions regarding posting on mumsnet as there is a search function readily available.

Manatee posts on lots of other threads some of which I've read.
She doesn't represent an organization.
You actively represent the Steiner Waldorf movement in the US
So her question deserved an answer.

I represent the Steiner/Waldorf movement in the US in the same manner as I don't post on other threads.