waldorf steiner

[heninthemidden]

hi,

anyone had good experience of waldorf steiner education system?

Gnomie, you don't go into detail about your situation, but if you're worried about things being awful 'out there,' I can assure you that's most definitely not the case.

We'd had three years' experience of state school (nursery to Y2), and were shocked to come across the attitudes to this education in the Steiner school. People really seem to think it produces monsters, which I think causes parents who are wavering to feel trapped - better the devil you know.

I could go on and on, but I think the best Reassurance I can give you is that, although I may now have the occasional grumble, I have never walked away from school feeling as though I've just left my DCs in the hands of a bunch of flakes.

Kindergarten can be a truely wonderful experience and the 'majority' of the children and parents love it.

We both loved kindy and the feeling of belonging to a very special community. We loved the rhythms of the year, the baking, the singing, the daily walks, the artwork, the stories, the fairs, the festivals. But I have to say that as my child moved into the classroom, she like me was completely unaware of the extreme hardship we were about to face during our next stage of this wonderful journey and it has turned out to be ghastly.

I truely believed the hype that my child would be reading 'big books' like Harry Potter by 8 years of age. I believed the hype that my child would have an imagination the length and breadth of Great Britain. I believed the hype that my child would be writing reems and reems of stories all made up from her relaxed and dreamy little mind.

Do you know what my child has ended up as? A confused little girl who doesn't know how to spell, how to read even the most basic books fleuntly, how to write the most basic of words, save the obvious ones like on, it and an! And to top it all she has very little confidence when speaking publically and I can sort of guess why!

I feel so let down by it all and I know I have let her down but I will not let myself think like a victim and I will change this sorry mess by hook or by crook.

BTW, I notice the OP has never come back to their thread and can only hope that she/he has done a bit more research than I ever did.

Thankyou NonToxic for your support. It means an awful lot because I feel so trapped and unable to speak to my fellow parents.

Just reread my post above. By trapped I mean it is hard to trust any of the parents there because they are all so nicey nice to your face and then run off and spill their guts about what you have just said so they can get their daily pat on the head. It makes me want to puke it really does.

I can relate to so much of what you say - but you sound determined to sort things out for your DD and I'm sure you will.
Never feel it's too late for her to catch up, take it a small step at a time, maybe find her an understanding tutor or try and get an assesment by an ed. psych. to see if there's an underlying reason for her struggle with literacy - this is often overlooked at a Steiner school because of starting later.
Best of luck.

Zazizoma, you said: "The whole atmosphere is calm with an profoundly artistic attention to detail. For example, the children sit down together for a meal with flowers and a candle on the table. The children set the table and help to prepare the meal. Each place setting has a napkin in a ring on which the child's name is embroidered".

This is a beautiful description of some of the of the good things a Steiner kindy can offer.

Yet they use these rituals, the storytelling, the baking of bread, the art, the singing, the festivals, the walks in the woods to pull you in. They fetishize nature and childhood to make you think the outside world is this frightening materialist, synthetic inferior place, that it is best for you and your children to mix only with the 'community'.

All of the above you can do for free, you don't need to sign your child up to an esoteric sect to give your children any of the above. You can provide all of these things in the home and you will find many of these activities in many excellent state primary schools.
There is also Human Scale Education which may be worth looking at.

Barking, have a read of this you might find it interesting:

ukanthroposophy.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/swsf-pr-disaster/

Disenchantedgnomie. I took all of my dcs out of a Steiner school last summer. I have a number of friends who did the same (6 families). Children range from 3-10 and all are thriving in various state schools. It felt like a huge desicion cos the Steiner school had taken over our lives, but once we were out, the sun broke through the clouds and the world felt good again!

Hope you work out what's best for you and yours...

Good luck!

For the OP.

I'm sure there are a number of great Steiner schools out there.

Sadly we weren't at one of them. The problem with a poorly run school is that it can be underfunded and under resourced. Often the teachers are inexperienced and trying to juggle management, admin and teaching roles on very low salaries. Parents take over the management of the school which leads (predictably enough) to in-fighting and cliquiness.

All of this can inevitably lead to a pretty poor quality of education for the children involved.

My advice would be go for it if the school is thriving, well run and you love it! Run for the hills if it's 'just setting up' or 'a little rough round the edges'.

I would hate for Steiner education to disappear completely from the UK education scene. I just wish the SWSF could sort it out and focus on building up a few well run modern Steiner schools and not allow Steiner schools to be opened and running in the unacceptable state the one we went to was.

Q:
?Miss Keller, is there anything that could have been worse than losing your sight??

A:
?Yes, I could have lost my vision.?

I'm sure that HK would be the first to agreed that it's quite nice to have sight AND vision though, and the scant regard for health and safety at my dcs' old school didn't always guarantee the continuance of both...

Isenhart7 elegantly illustrates why not to send your child into the arms of these deeply authentic and spiritually meaningful individuals.

Would HK actually be seen as qualified for playground duty, that is the question!

I have decided to give my children a Waldorf Steiner influenced home education. I have also done the Steiner teacher training in London.

There are some wonderful (and a few not so wonderful) ideas behind the Steiner method and curriculum. It's all about what you choose to take out of it. The great thing about home education is you can ditch any of the stuff you don't like!

Rudolf Steiner also invented biodynamic agriculture using some very radical philosophies and there doesn't seem to be much heated debate about that so he can't have been totally mad!

The reading/writing debate:

I could read when I was very young and I really love books and am a very fluent reader. However, I am also a psychologist and am very concerned about how much "left brain" focused modern education is becoming. Studies have shown that our right brain is becoming less and less active and I personally think that this is a bad thing.

By delaying reading and writing to a later age, and having a calmer, more playing focussed life before six/seven I believe, helps to redress this balance. As long as the child has a good teacher, there is no reason why he/she shouldn't be able to read very well within a year if they start at six/seven (like many other European countries). Einstein didn't go to school till he was nearly seven!

I personally find that reception classes here have become way too full on for four year olds - and their poor exhausted teachers!

Where do I stand on the Steiner debate? I'm really pro his method of education and his curriculum, there are some truly inspired ideas. However, I'm still to be convinced by Steiner schools... some of them seem to be great but some of them could really do with a thorough shake up to say the least.

"If a child starts too early they will learn to read but they will never be a fluent reader as an adult."

That is rubbish. Is that what they tell you at Steiner?

I learned to read at the age of 3 and am now a very fluent reader in three languages, thank you very much.

It is rubbish!

Steiner certainly didn't say it isn't ever suggested on the Steiner teacher training course either.

I have no problem with the apparent differences of Steiner education - no reading/writing until the age of 6-7, no watching TV, teaching them a dance to express themselves ("eurythmy"), etc.

What I have a problem with is the absurdity of the principles behind these differences:

-- no reading/writing before age 6/7 because that is when adult teeth start coming in and Steiner said that is when reincarnation is done, and no intellectual education should be done before reincarnation of the soul in this little body is complete

-- no watching TV because Steiner said that an evil spirit called Ahriman communicates thorough it

-- teaching eurythmy as a means to communicate with the spirit world

... all of which is quite incredibly nutty. And that is probably why they never mention these underlying reasons for features of Steiner education during their "open days"

Oh and have I mentioned that Steiner schools have made it to a short list of cults in France and Belgium, alongside Scientology?

Filigree - I agree. There are some very interesting and I think good principles behind Steiner education.

But the problem I have - and this is even disregarding whatever beliefs are behind it, which is a debate that I simply cannot be arsed to get involved in - is that Steiner schools seem to take the whole package swallowed in one, hook line and sinker, with no dissent allowed.

Hence the gnomes. I can very much see the point of folklore and fairy tales for young children, but those of my culture. Gnomes are germanic, nothing to do with me. But if Steiner says gnomes, gnomes there will be.

I'd love to find a steiner influenced school that was a bit more open-minded and thoughtful about what they did. But I can't see the point of opting out of the state system - where at least I am allowed to disagree - for a religion in which I don't believe.

And does anyone know why they all use the same bloody awful typeface? That's just another bit of the slavish conformity that really gets on my nerves.

Filigree - I agree. There are some very interesting and I think good principles behind Steiner education.

But the problem I have - and this is even disregarding whatever beliefs are behind it, which is a debate that I simply cannot be arsed to get involved in - is that Steiner schools seem to take the whole package swallowed in one, hook line and sinker, with no dissent allowed.

Hence the gnomes. I can very much see the point of folklore and fairy tales for young children, but those of my culture. Gnomes are germanic, nothing to do with me. But if Steiner says gnomes, gnomes there will be.

I'd love to find a steiner influenced school that was a bit more open-minded and thoughtful about what they did. But I can't see the point of opting out of the state system - where at least I am allowed to disagree - for a religion in which I don't believe.

And does anyone know why they all use the same bloody awful typeface? That's just another bit of the slavish conformity that really gets on my nerves.

If I could slightly correct you there a bit (don't worry it's still going to sound kooky but I'd rather get the facts straight!)

Steiner says: The adult teeth coming in signifies the birth of the "etheric body" which is a part of our spiritual make up. (There is also the astral body which is the one that floats about when your are asleep - if you have ever had an out of body experience, you'll know what this is!)

The biologists say: The adult teeth signify the end of the major organs development. They are quite susceptible to change before this but at 6/7 they are fixed in shape.

Steiner does indeed talk about a "demon" called Ahriman (who is actually from Persian mythology) who is the archetype of all that is evil in materialism (as opposed to all that is evil in power lust that is found in Lucifer).

More than a minimal amount of tv is bad for children. Steiner died (he died in 1925) before tv was invented but he probably would associate the Ahriman archetype with television (mostly due to adverts i'd imagine).

LOL vonsudenfed - I couldn't agree more!

I joke with my DH that some Steiner schools are playing the game "Simon says" except it's "Steiner says".

The sad thing is that Steiner did actually say quite vehemently that he didn't want his form of education to turn into dogma and that the schools must move with the times and the cultures!

That's why I'm home educating. Doin' it my way!

Again, as a long-time Steiner parent I'd really be interested in seeing the studies mentioned in this thread. Studies have shown that our right brain is becoming less and less active?

I read an analogy the other year - Steiner parents are trapped in the system like moths are to a bright light.

At the time I didn't understand it....

But do you know what? I actually feel like I have been bashing myself around that brilliant light for years and now that it is dimming - I can see that what I thought was gold is actually painted foil!

worked in a steiner environment once, and had the biggest hoot ever. We had lectures about 'upside down plants' 'frour fold man' 'three fold man' and remember in particular a group of us stifling our giggles over an hour long lecture in which we were to admire a chair and its swooping shape etc. Sorry, but complete baloney to me.

Great idea about biodynamic farming though, and also agree with some of the medicine but some of the other stuff was way beyond me and my colleagues who were not anthros, just ordinary folk doing their job.