waldorf steiner

[heninthemidden]

hi,

anyone had good experience of waldorf steiner education system?

Nortern,
I know plenty of dc's attending state school,
I know they are underfunded, I know most teachers work their socks off!
Despite this they have constraints, they get not much training on how to strenghten the feeling world of the children as the emphasis is on getting them through exams.
I know that in many schools the kids watch tely in break when it rains. I know that many schools do not offer Learning support within school time.
But I also know some very good state teachers working hard within this sort of frame work.
I Also know that many state schools are changing for the better!
I still send my dc's to a Steiner school because I think at our school they get an education that gets the best out of them.
Of course I know their teachers very well as they are my colleges.
It is not superior but more human for my dc's.
And you always want the best for your children!

theCaty - what is: the 'feeling world' of the children? Please define. It could have so many possible meanings. Or it could... not have any real meaning at all. And how does one strengthen such a vague idea?

And what do you mean by 'more human?' That's quite an audacious statement.

The exam culture is criticized, rightly. But the emphasis in state schools is not always on testing. And a few exam passes help, in the end, if you want to be a doctor or a lawyer or a teacher yourself. Philosopher A C Grayling here talks eloquently about the importance of science education for every child. I wouldn't want my children denied the chance to be part of the great 21st Century adventure he describes however great the strengthening of various... vague constructs of a teacher's imaginary world.

TheRationalist is spot-on. Anthroposophy informs and is inseparable from Steiner Education. To say anything else is pure denialism.

TheRationalist
Thanks for posting that; it does make sense of much that was happening; people often didn't seem to behave in a rational way....

In the context of your post, what I find alarming is that the communications officer for The Steiner Waldorf Fellowship said recently (on a blog) that he would like to see more anthroposophists in schools.
As the schools seem to go to great lengths to imply anthroposophy has passing relevance in schools, barely, if ever , mentioning it, in promotional literature, or at the schools one would have to ask- why?

wilderduck
Great post.
I really admire A C Grayling.

thecaty
I'm going to have to suggest you go over to pedants corner with your spelling

Your children's teachers are your colleges?
Or collages?
Or your colleagues could be your teachers....

Did you go to Steiner college for you teacher training?
What books by Steiner were on your reading list if you don't mind my asking?

In our children's school they don't watch tv at break- they have art, nature, drama, and a host of clubs.. or.. they just...play.

At their Steiner they were unsupervised for what seemed most of their lunch break, and among other things, climbed roofs, swung over gorges from bridges, let brakes off diggers, and according to my dc's, performed mini strip tease.
This was also when some of the nastiest bullying happened.

Yes, we always want what we believe is best for our children.
Not what some clairvoyant loop and his followers believed.

Thecaty- the schools I've come accross have all had full time learning support assistants.

I thought the DOE insists that all mainstream schools ahve learning support. I would imagine it's highly unusual not to.
Where did you get that detail from?

Yes, state schools are very underfunded.
It's a scandal.

Wow theCaty! Any Steiner teacher criticising state schools for not offering learning support is pretty damn brave

I'm never sure about the anthro-conspiracy stuff The Rationalist but that thng you posted about sifting really rang true. Teachers at our SWS were left to sink all the time. At first I put it down to poor pay, stress, general incompetence, but in the end it did feel that the school 'chose' for it to be this way (in as much as anyone chose anything in the strange meanderings of a SWS)

What also always struck me about this was how when a teacher was really struggling no one helped, they just gave up on them, became frustrated and then relieved when they inevitably left. I found this incredibly unsupportive and quite nasty. I wondered why anyone would choose to work in an environment where the moment the chips were down, everyone started giving you little nudges towards the door.

It was kind of symptomatic of the whole Steiner bullying thing for me. Everyone would be all 'We're such a lovely community, our children sing songs and play games with the fairies in the wood" and then suddenly this extrordinary lack of compassion for both the teaching staff and the children who struggled.

What's so compelling about this thread for me is how similar all our experiences are. I think I'm going to stop reading and then kerching!

Is that ker - ching Maria33? Is it more web slang I don't understand?

I don't think there are any conspiracies. 'Three can keep a secret if two are dead' as Benjamin Franklin said. All this stuff is out there, especially now, on the web. It's just we hadn't understood its effects until now.

You're right, it's perhaps not conscious choice in those strange meanderings. More, a lack of something real to hang on to.

Nortern there is a difference between a learning support assistance and the one to one lessons our children get at our school.
My friend has to send both her children, after school to a learning support teacher (trained) paying £20.00 for a 30 minute lesson.
We have two qualified learning support teachers working at our school.

Feeling, what do I mean by that.
There is one child in my class, It had a learning support assistant in the class room at the state school. Among other things the child used to circle on its own every break time all break. 6 month after this child joined my class the same child played with other children happely, so it is now feeling better about itself and feels it can now join in, interacting almost normally with all the other children. That is what I mean with the feeling world!
I know of at least three state schools where tv is played in the break on rainy days.
I am not saying it happens every where, only that it does happen.. fact!
The support at our school among teachers is very good, but I am sure that in some schools it could be a lot better.

No takers yet for helping to improve SW schools rather than criticising them.
And ... dragging them through the mud?

Northern;
You wrote, "This was also when some of the nastiest bullying happened."
These are serious allegations, Northern any concrete proof, how and in what shape and form did this bullying occur?
I hope you called in social services. ( I certainly would !)

thecaty
Would I be right in feeling you are continually posting a barrage of comments to try and discredit what happened to our dc's?

What proof do you want? The bruises on my, and other, kids? The patches where their hair was pulled? The scars where they were scratched on their hands? The smashed glasses of the boy who was punched? The marks on the small boy, who was told by his attackers that they knew a way to harm him which didn't leave bruises? The damaged bike on which they were ambushed? Or proof of the emotional scars they carried?
Do tell me.

The way you are reacting is the way we were treated at the school- my children weren't telling the truth, they were exaggerating, there wasn't a history of bullying at the school, pretend it's not there and it will go away, say it often enough by enough people and it will go away. Over and over again; meeting after meeting, until I began to doubt my own child, even though she had bruises, even though she was waking every night in distress.

The children I feel most for are the ones whose parents were anthros, or leaning that way; their children had to have "curative eurythmy".

You are reacting like they did thecaty; but then you are a Steiner teacher.

I asked advice actually, about one particularly distressing incident which happened to a child there, about taking it further; I was told it was my word against theirs, and in these instances ranks close and they pull together.

For us it was cathartic to realise we weren't the only ones, which is where discussion forums like this, and plans website are helpful.
And to see our children flourish and grow in a school where there is respect for each other, from the small eccentric and sensitive , to the wild unconventional ones; there's room for all of them, and they appreciate each other's diversity. The teachers respect the children too, and it is reciprocated. I'm sure there are somre Steiner schools where this is the case, but it wasn't in ours.

I actually find it very telling thecaty, that you ask for "proof" about the bullying, but seem to accept that climbing on roofs, diggers, bridges, unsupervised, doesn't need proof.

In a perfect world, letting children have that sort of freedom is what I for one would wish for.We thought that was how Steiner school would be.
But the risks involved weren't added up in any sort of professional way. It was a miracle, when I look back, that no children came to severe harm; maybe not a miracle- maybe their guardian angels; but then I don't believe in the supernatural.

Are the books that are read and studied for Steiner teacher training guarded?

Maria- what you say rings so true; I always felt that they gave up on teachers - and were relieved when they left, even if this meant they were moving to another Steiner school- no doubt with glowing references!

But what you say about lack of compassion is most poignant for me; there were instances of such obvious lack human empathy that I was often taken aback. I was upset once about something that had happened to one of my dcs, and in frustration and distress at the lack of anything being done, I cried. I still have the letter from the college of teachers which castigates me for crying!

TheCaty

Is it possible that you are incapable of understanding what is going on here?

Here

summed up

School screwed over kids. Mums very angry. Mums post about school.

Catharsis...

Hang on
That should read

No one really wants to help ex-school.

I think that we are all also here for current Steiner families and prospective ones.

I know I found this thread enormously helpful last summer when it all came tumbling down for us.

Hi,thank God for the internet.My daughter has suffered a racist teacher and now a fellow pupil,nothing has been done,we are complaining again.
Through the internet I have found out some very worrying and interesting things about Anthroposophy,its so good to read other peoples experiences for support,thanks.

Hello maimuna
I'm glad you feel supported. Good luck.

Thanks,Wilderduck.x

The comments from Jeremy Smith have been referred to earlier on this thread as well. I agree, it's extraordinary.

I can't imagine how you feel maimuna. Anthroposophy has no place in this country in this century. I hope you're not feeling too upset.

Maria, sad to say this is not a conspiracy. Roger Rawlings is a former student of Steiner Waldorf and his mother worked at the same school.

Maimuna, I'm very concerned to hear of yet another deeply disturbing experience of Steiner Waldorf education. I hope you find a way through the mire.

Hi,to you both,its a nightmare at the moment as we're in the middle of it and waiting to get another meeting,trouble is we have told our daughter (she's 13)everything we have found out and she wants to stay at the school as she has some brilliant friends and a couple of nice teachers,(she also says if we don't fight the racism nothing will change)we just want to escape !!!!

She's very brave,but I'm worried if she stays,,,

By the way her German teacher said'The boy had so much chocolate on his face he looked like a nigger' !

I found the Roger Rawlings site the other day,I've been doing extensive research,I can tell you!

Waldorf schools show extremely low animosity towards foreigners

"The works of Rudolf Steiner have been repeatedly pilloried for supposedly containing racist statements or comments. This has in turn then lent support to the supposition that Waldorf schools in general tend to harbour a xenophobic atmosphere, as expressed in the spring of 2006 for example on the German television channels ZDF and 3sat. A new empirical study by Christian Pfeiffer of Lower Saxony's Criminological Research Institute states that in fact the exact opposite is true.

"According to the study led by Christian Pfeiffer, Professor of Criminology, pupils at Waldorf schools exhibit the lowest levels of both xenophobia and right-wing extremism. At Hauptschulen (the lowest tier of the German three-tiered school system), 24.7% of pupils harbour xenophobic and 9.5% right-wing tendencies. This drops to 8.3% and 1.9% respectively at Gymnasiums (the highest tier school, the equivalent of grammar schools). But only 2.8% of Waldorf pupils can be considered to have xenophobic and 1.2% right-wing attitudes. This evaluation is based on information obtained from 9,001 youngsters attending the 9th year at schools in Germany.

"According to these figures, Hauptschule pupils show three times more xenophobia than Gymnasium pupils, and Gymnasium pupils three times more than Waldorf pupils. This clearly very low figure is especially striking when seen in conjunction with the fact that in some other categories (e.g. graffiti-spraying, shop-lifting and truancy) the study shows Waldorf pupils to be level-pegging with Hauptschule pupils and way above Gymnasium pupils.

"The results regarding 'macho' attitudes are even more striking, with Waldorf pupils scoring an extremely low rating: Only 0.3% of ninth-year pupils agreed with statements such as 'A man who is not prepared to react to insults with violence is a weakling', or 'If a woman cheats on her husband it is o.k. for him to beat her'. For Gymnasium pupils the figure was almost seven time higher (2.0%), and for Hauptschule pupils compared with Gymnasium pupils 'only' a bit over four times more (8.7%).

"Especially in categories where derogatory stereotyping is most frequent (i.e. against women and against foreigners), this shows the attitudes of Waldorf pupils to be a great deal more up to date than those of their fellow pupils elsewhere. This in turn corresponds with the attitude expressed by Steiner in his written works, especially his description of the human being in the final chapter 'Individuality and Genus' of his main work The Philosophy of Freedom:

"'If we seek in the generic laws the reasons for an expression of this being, we seek in vain. We are concerned with something purely individual which can be explained only in terms of itself. If a human being has achieved this emancipation from all that is generic, and we are nevertheless determined to explain everything about him in generic terms, then we have no sense for what is individual. It is impossible to understand a human being completely if one takes the concept of genus as the basis of one's judgement.'"

Maimuna -you must be very proud of your daughter. She's showing real courage

She shouldn't have to fight this by herself, I'm glad her friends support her.

Good luck to her, and to you x