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Original poster

Steiner education

441 replies

alloveragain · 19/08/2009 01:17

Can anyone suggest an appropriate forum in which I could talk to someone about Steiner education? We have our concerns about it, but our children are still at a Steiner school.
Thanks

OP posts:
northernrefugee39 · 13/12/2009 16:10

restless - I have to comment on that article you've posted from the Times Ed. I can't make it out. It makes Steiner Waldorf sound loony and ....strange. Yet I believe she's attempting to do the very opposite.....
The baby's soul on the plane?
Que?

"Right now his soul is black" - I assume this is a reference to anthroposophical belief about our souls reincarnating through different races from "lower" to "higher"? It's slightly more disturbing than "weird".
Anyway, the article seems somewhat muddled. I wonder if the author actually trained as a Steiner teacher. Steiner "freely" interchanged the words "freedom" with "spiritual activity". The only "right" way to educate or "train" children was his.

Mathanxiety - some great posts. Thanks, they make very good reading.
I truly hope thecaty answers your pertinent question as to what she/he thinks makes Steiner schools so "special". I put the word in inverted commas, because it was used often about the children at the Steiner school ours went to, as a given: they were "special", but when asked why, it was never qualified. I later understood that it was because they were being given the "right" training, at the "right" time, for their souls and spirits to incarnate, for their astral and etheric bodies to grow or whatever etheric bodies do. It would be helpful if thecaty had any input on this. But to answer that, thecaty would a) have to admit to being a trained Steiner teacher, and b) discuss the anthroposophical aspects of the education. By not dong either of these things, she/he is perpetuating the slippery, disingenuous ways so many of us are familiar with.

restlessnative · 13/12/2009 17:27

northernrefugee39 yep, it is a counter-intuitive defense of Steiner ed. I'm sure the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship are thrilled.

There is a clever post atm at the sceptic blog 'Stuff and Nonsense' which discusses 'tackling misinformation without inadvertently helping to spread it'. I recommend, sadly a bit late in this case.

Do we have to say which post we're on now? This is message 472. Have you got that?

thecaty · 13/12/2009 18:44

All the children at our school can count as far as I know, who was your teacher restless?
It is plain to see what is different. hat is better is in the eye of the beholder.

restlessnative · 13/12/2009 19:05

thecaty you are a true Dogberry

thecaty · 13/12/2009 19:27

Have you got a Dogberry cake recipe?...restless

Barking · 13/12/2009 19:30

TheCaty, may I ask what your teaching qualifications are?

thecaty · 13/12/2009 19:32

Got non, why?

northernrefugee39 · 13/12/2009 19:58

thecaty could we just be clear about this for a sec?
You are a class teacher in a Steiner school? (on the other threads all the indications pointed to this fact, though for some obscure reason known only to yourself, you don't want to actually spit it out).
So, have you done a Steiner waldorf teacher training course?
Just a yes or no would be helpful.
And interesting.

mathanxiety · 13/12/2009 20:14

Hi Thecaty I was wondering about your take on the Sats issue for your child or if there are any parents from the Hereford school on MN, maybe they would be interested in chipping in.

As for your preference for a Steiner school for your DS, and why, I am still interested.

"It is plain to see what is different. hat is better is in the eye of the beholder." I wish it was plain, thecaty The eye of the beholder is true but doesn't shed much light.

northernrefugee39 · 13/12/2009 20:20

restless did you know that apparently Rudolf Steiner believed Shakespeare's characters could be really brought "alive" and raised into a "supersensible world" where they continued to be "alive" and , more remarkably, carried on acting.... extraordinary.
So there are probably anthros out there, who think there are hundreds of Shakespearian characters, striding around in higher worlds ... with the gnomes, and angels and trolls.....

thecaty · 13/12/2009 20:22

Math, my Ds only started reading at 9 He just was not interested before. I was glad his teacher did not push him as in one year he has achieved a reading age 10.5. DO YOU WANT MORE EXAMPLES.

thecaty · 13/12/2009 20:24

Northern, have you got that from ur goal keeper?

northernrefugee39 · 13/12/2009 20:28

mathanxiety, from our experience, any form of "test" is absolute anathema to Steiner schools. It is treated with the same disdain as tv, computers, playmobil, non organic food and all that is "unnatural"
Having said that, I wasn't impressed by some of the sats papers I saw when my middle dc was doing them, ( one box, one right answer, I tend to fall into the Michael Rosen opinion of sats) but as the brilliant headmaster of our primary school said in a whisper surely loud enough for more than one or two of us to hear, "Sats are bollocks"

Barking · 13/12/2009 20:30

TheCaty, if you haven't got any teaching qualifications what are you doing teaching a class of 11 year olds?

northernrefugee39 · 13/12/2009 20:38

thecaty , do you mean Staudenmaier? No, Rudolf Steiner wrote it here, in this book called Faculty meetings with Rudolf Steiner it's on page 336 I think if you want to look it up.

I have examples of friends of my dcs who could barely read at 10 from their Steiner school. But there were also some very bright children, who actually were bored and frustrated. What I like about the primary school where our dd goes is that these things are recognised, the bright children rarely get bored, and the ones who struggle, who are dyslexic for example, are given the help they need, rather than leaving them to see what happens "karmically".

Why don't you say that you are a class teacher, if indeed you are?

restlessnative · 13/12/2009 20:56

northern Yes! I'd heard that idea about Steiner & Shakespeare: only 'they have their exits & their entrances' and death, from which no man returns, is pretty much the end of any reasonable performance. Our friend here plays the fool in his own time, bless him, without the benefit of slap or motley.

northernrefugee39 · 13/12/2009 21:00

Barking , I think there are/were various part time teaching courses for Steiner teachers, at Emerson College for example.
(Note that Anthroposophic Studies is a Waldorf education prerequisite)
I know that at least one of out dc's teachers was training on one of these part time courses while she was teaching our dcs, and we later found out she had barely any other qualifications; one higher certificate I think, (is that the equivalent of an o-level? I don't know) but certainly not a degree.
I gather this is fairly common in Steiner waldorf schools. A training in anthroposophy and a willingness is all that's required as far as I know.
Scary.

thecaty · 13/12/2009 21:01

Why can't you leave this questioning once and for all? I am a parent sending my dc's to a wonderful Syeiner school, That listens to my opinions, where Non of the children are bored, where weaker one's get help and stronger one's get extra work as a challange. Is that so difficult to understand?
Are you all detectives? If you were u would have lost your jobs by now!

thecaty · 13/12/2009 21:04

Nortern, at our school there are 80% state teacher trained teachers. Your wild guessed puzzle me.

northernrefugee39 · 13/12/2009 21:15

Don't you see thecaty that by denying so vehemently, refusing to answer, you make it so suspicious? What have you to hide?
Surely it makes sense that on a discussion about Steiner schools, if one of the contributors is a teacher at the school, but is hiding that fact, it looks very very bizarre?

And that isn't a wild guess btw, this teacher had no other qualifications.

But I'm sure you're right, some Steiner schools have state trained teachers, and some have teachers who have very little training apart from anthroposophical, and that is apparently all that's required. Is this so?

mathanxiety · 13/12/2009 23:13

Is it a practice in the Steiner school you have experience with to actively avoid teaching children to read, or is this a skill that is taught when a 'teachable moment' arises -- when a child seems really ready to learn and could plunge in quickly and make fast progress? I ask because my neighbour's child, who attended a Steiner school (still does, but they moved to go to the new school) saw my own DD reading and pestered her for ages to teach her, which she did. DD patiently told her what sounds different letters made, helped her sound out words, showed her how to keep her finger under the line she was reading, as she had been taught. The little neighbour caught on really fast, at about 5.5 yrs old (DD was 6.5 and had been reading since 4.5) and was very happy to be able to read alongside my DD. I don't think her mum was too thrilled about DD teaching her daughter to read, but she was, im(unprofessional)o ready and able, yet they had not touched on this skill at her school. I have to admit I wondered why.

northernrefugee39 · 14/12/2009 10:45

mathanxiety, yes, in our experience reading wasn't touched upon until they were about 7 when their adult teeth come in, which is all important. They were taught to write letters first, when they left the kindegarten. Apparently, writing strengthens their etheric bodies.There were no books in kindegarten, nothing with printed material at all.
One of our dcs had been a superb reader, but pretended she couldn't and went back to square one in order to be like the others. I had asked her teacher when she first went there whether the fact she was reading and writing well would be a problem and the teacher had reassured me; I had assumed she would be given work which met her needs. This is after all, what most teachers would recognise and try to accommodate. But of course this didn't happen; I assume they thought they were "undoing" the "damage" by taking her back to drawing huge K's in the shape of a king. Poor little thing.

Apparently, reading, writing etc, academic stuff, is said to damage a child's etheric and astral bodies. Even between the ages of 7 and 14, too much academic stimulation is said to damage the astral body.
When Steiner people talk about teaching children at the "right time" in their "development", it really is so entirely different from what most of us conceive that it takes a while to assimilate it. This is where it would be helpful to have a Steiner teacher's input.
I know that I heard somewhere that a kindegarten covered up a sign which said "fire exit" with a drape in case the children saw it.

Original poster
alloveragain · 14/12/2009 11:56

Maybe this might throw a light on SATS. We had 100% withdrawal "by parents' for the testing at the Steiner school our children attended We were completely and utterly bullied into the decision by their class teacher. "It would be detrimental and completely demoralising for the children." "In the past 100% of student have been removed from the testing". We were faced with our children possibly being the only children in the school doing the tests. On viewing previous tests online, our children had no chance of being able to complete them. This was in grade 3. Then in grade 5, we were not even asked. It was assumed they would not be involved.

OP posts:
gnomesrus · 14/12/2009 12:15

Message withdrawn

thecaty · 14/12/2009 16:11

N,I am not sure what the criteria is for every one of the hundreds of schools. Both of my dc's teachers are state trained. I would imagine in most schools you would expect that.
Please stop this guessing game!