Steiner education

[alloveragain]

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

Hi Amazedandastounded,

thank you for understanding

I rarely post on here these days, (I'm a regular for about 6 years) due to the libel threats.

For those who doubted the integrity of the mothers who posted here, a document was recently discovered online which proves the individual who regularly threatened Mumsnet with libel is being paid by the Swedish S W Federation to do so:

"In England, the attacks on [waldorf] pedagogy has led to parents withdrawing their children from the waldorf schools. The [Swedish Waldorf] Federation has employed Sune on a part-time basis to monitor the debate".

Supervising the Attacks

Your neigbour sounds like a nightmare, you have my greatest sympathy! Until a few years ago I was surrounded by parents like that. It is such a relief to be out of there.

I remember one of the parents who's son had never even seen a tv asked me to cover mine up when his son came to play.

Another one who happened to come over and play settled down with my children who were watching a film, having previously been part of the Steiner school I thought I'd better check with the mother - she shook her head and her child had to be asked to leave.

regarding your neigbour being a 'study leader' you could ask her if she is member of ''The First Class', I remember thinking I had just started getting a handle on Steiner and anthroposophy when someone mentioned there was this whole other uber level of anthroposophy and I couldn't believe it.

The 'First Class' is the first class or step of initiation devised by Rudolf Steiner in response to requests from young Anthroposophists who sought to get more out of their membership of The Anthroposophical Society. The ?First Class? are Anthroposophists who believe they hold higher clairvoyant knowledge. The ?spiritual health? of a school is measured by the First Class Readers in part by the membership of the First Class in the College of Teachers. They also carry a blue card apparently.

An American Survivor:

"It is the next step towards being able to have clairvoyant vision into the spirit world and is a course on how to do this. You must be mentored by another member who has at least that level status and who is your direct guide. A man in my town has the actual books associated with this level of study.

I was told by a member of First Class that one applied to belong, but of course had to be approved based on his/her mentor, regional group head, and ASA (Anthroposophical Society of America) and of course, the Goetheanum (World Headquarters in Switzerland) itself to be approved...

The Spiritual Science (First Class course) books are definitely not available for public view and are guarded heavily by the few who own them. They are blue green and quite large.

The man who heads the Anthroposophical study group in my town owns them and I have seen them, but wasn't allowed to "touch" it or read it freely on my own even in his presence. He read to me from it like a lecture.

Sheesh. A really creepy experience to say the least, and pretty insulting really."

It should be noted that one can't even be considered for admission to First Class without a two-year membership of the General Anthroposophical Society in the first place.

First Class

Now you know all this you could have some fun... I always used to think if I bumped into any of them again I would say that our children were specially chosen to go to a secret school, so special I can't tell them - it's a bit like Steiner and Indigo but more spiritual

If Mumsnet wish that I take this conversation elsewhere I respect that, I am happy for the poster to cat me if she prefers.

Barking x

bit late in the day, but if you want to avoid some of the more eccentric visitors to this thread, you may want to code it - A for Anthro S for Stein.

blimey what a thread! i was thinking of a nearby steiner school for dd but this thread (i gotto page 7) has scared me enough to revoke that decsion!

mostly because i went to a school (independent) which encouraged free discussion of everything and had an open, self governing structure. i am looking for similar for dd but closer to me - was hoping steiner might be like that but it appear - from posts here its quite the opposite.

back to the drawing board for me!

Thank you for replying, Barking, and for posting those links. Will read !

Dr. Richard House, Roehampton University, is the leading proponent of child-centered learning. He has a point but he completely ignores the fact that it takes 2-3 years for some children to understand how reading works. There is no reason under the sun why 4-6 year olds can't spend a little time each day on development of reading skills.

If Dr. House understood the misery of those Steiner children, aged 8,9 and older who cannot decode - and therefore cannot read except via the fragile route of guessing a few hundred words - he might address the question. He was after all a Steiner Head for a number of years. Presumably he is basing the campaign he spearheads on Steiner principles.

gosh, i've just been reading all this... why can't the steiner advocates write in english properly? is it because they are foreign, do you think? or will children educated at steiner always express themselves like victorian schoolmarms?

anyway, biiiiiig steiner vibe where i live, parents who are into it always a bit intense for my liking (and yet a bit needy ime).

the one adult i know who was steiner educated is a clever, beautiful woman who has never, ever been able to fit with the rest of the world and is consequently pretty unhappy and rude most of the time. it's a shame, she has so much to offer but her clear sense of innate superiority just puts other lesser beings like myself right off her.

Aitch - are you a lesser being? If so, I am too.

I believe from previous threads that theCaty is dyslexic.

However, other posters who have not had that difficulty have issued pronouncements like baddies from old Dr Who episodes (their props are made from wood or knitted and cannot therefore be high-tech) and have got tetchy when mumsnetters haven't obeyed their orders. There's a great deal of autocracy in The Movement, as well as adherence to various beliefs: reincarnation, karma, the reality of Atlantis and the academic credibility of Dr Richard House - mentioned above, that suggests proponents of Steiner Waldorf ed may be one sheep short of a full flock. Or, as mumsnetter Tattifer once wrote in a delightful (though sadly deleted) haiku:

anthro song sung free
a message on the dawn air
completely cuckoo

'scuse me- I'm just marking this thread

-am a home edder who considered S when I became horrified by my dc's (state) school/ management. Luckily a bit of digging put me straight but I'm very interested in this

Pmsl at the haiku, restless. And yes, Aitch, I too noted the frankly bizarre sentence structure of the Steiner proponents: often awkward, and sometimes downright unsound, it does little to suggest that their teaching would be of high quality.

it was so weird. i was kinda skimming but whenever i got stuck in some dense, near-dickensian prose i always know there was a steinerian about...

lol at the haiku. i just cannot write those.

Ha, I invite the return of the brilliant Tattifer.

There was a post about Steiner schools by another home edder, Home Education Heretic. You may not agree with everything he says, SpringHeeledJack but he's an interesting read: he calls this Here come the gnomes!

thanks for that restless- I hadn't seen that post before

I have had a look at his blog before though-but I wouldn't admit it in HE company

v thought provoking...

I was at a Steiner school for the greater part of my education and don't recognise a lot of the mumbo jumbo that has been written here. As a pupil you know nothing of anthroposophy and simply are told all the stories of all the different religions, both modern and ancient. I remember asking my teacher if the Greek gods were real, she answered that they were real to the people of Greece at the time. As pupils, we all had a good laugh about things being "Steinerized", which to us meant that all wood had the corners chopped off, everything was organic and that we were surrounded by, what my Mum called, "beans and wool" people.

The benefits though have carried me throughout my life. That all people are equal and everyone is good at something, kindness is paramount and bullying in my experience, was none existant (within pupils, bullying was frowned upon and - though it is had to explain, naff.)

By the way, in case you need verification, I've become a successful businesswoman as an adult and at a recent school reunion saw my old friends who had, for the most part been happy and fulfilled in their career.

For all that, now I have my own children I've chosen not to send them to a Steiner school, there isn't one nearby and both of my children are quite normal, confident and content where they are. But if they were at all sensitive, or, for example have been bullied, I would move house to send them there.

There are lots of oddities about Steiner schools, but a religious cult - no! Above all Steiner schools are happy, joyous places, and the kids do keep it real.

Ah - get your PR round this: the Steiner thriller -

But it disappeared, so here's another

Not the same vid, restless-I guess your wish is someone's command. Hmm...

These threads always irritate me huuuuugely..only because most of the people who post messages really don't know anything about steiner education. I was at a Steiner School until a few years ago, and am now at a state sixth form college. I believe I can see both the pros and cons of Steiner education, and one of the major problems with Steiner schools is that they are all independent and are not regulated, unlike state schools. This means that each Steiner school can be very different, and that nobody's opinion of a Steiner school is true of all schools - the only advice that will really help you in making a decision about whether to send your child to a school is if you talk to the parents, children and teachers of the school your child might attend.

I think that Steiner schools are no more radical than any other type of education. I think that many people jump to conclusions and declare all Steiner schools 'bad' due to one bad experience - some people don't suit steiner schools and they will have a miserable time, just as in state schools some people spend their entire school life being picked on and put down by their school mates and teachers.

Also, please, PLEASE, do not judge Steiner schools by Steiner parents. There are some strange people who choose to send their children to Steiner schools, and these people are often the ones who approach people and try to inflict their views on new parents. But they're harmless...trust me, I have spent my whole life around them :) But there are MORE normal parents, who let their children watch TV and films and eat sweets and play with plastic toys. I know 100+ people who have graduated from my Steiner school, due to the strong family environment that the school offers, between sixteen and twenty five, and all of them are confident, intelligent, kind, creative, happy and, above all, NORMAL.

I guess my point is DON'T JUDGE. Every school is different and every parent is different, but it is often the more radical people who show themselves first. If you were considering sending your child to a Steiner school, I think the best advice I could give would be to attend school events, like summer/winter fairs. Most parents and teachers will attend these with their children and there are many opportunities to watch the children play and also to talk to other parents and the teachers. This way, you are having informal conversations, so the teachers will have no prepared spiel to recite to you and also, you can talk to many different parents and easily escape from any fanatics.. :o

Buuuuut let me repeat..the fanatics are harmless! The worse that they could do is feed your child tofu burgers and not let them watch TV for an afternoon, and anyone can deal with that.

It's the middle of the night, so I'm probably expressing myself very ineloquently. All I'm trying to say is that everyone makes this massive big deal out of it, and really, all it is is a different way of teaching. I personally think it's a better way of teacher, but it suits some people and not others, like all things.

Another thing, about the reading issue:

It's not that children are not ALLOWED to read until they are eight years old, it's that they are given no formal teaching. What this means is that the children with a desire to read will pick things up from around them, in the same way as you learn to talk as a baby - you learn from recognition, but no body forces you to practice. Children who are not interested or find it more difficult are gently eased into it, and this means that they don't spend hours everyday bored with something they don't want to learn. For example, in my class of ten students, in class two/three, five of us were reading the Little House on the Prairie stories, whilst the other five were reading pirate stories with stories such as 'The Blue Pirate found a Red Hat on the beach...'. This worked well, as our class teacher would supply those of us which could read with copies of the book that he would read allowed to us at the end of the day, so that we could follow the words as he read. The others could just listen. Nobody minded or really noticed this divide.

The result was that we all learnt at our own pace, and by class four (ages nine to ten) we were all at the same level of reading - rarely having difficulty with any words and all taking an interest in reading stories ourselves.

iwillmarryharry ..the fanatics are harmless is a judgment as well no matter how many times you repeat it.

Also iwillmarryharry-you obvuiously did, at some point, notice that there were different levels of reading in your class and it's fair to assume that the less apt readers did as well. In my experience-a decade and a half-they are aware, and sometimes painfully so, of the division.

Haven't time to read all this, OP, but I'm not a fan of Steiner. I was at one stage, then I did a bit of background reading into Steiner's philosophies and beliefs. And spoke to a few people who had taught in them, as well as ex pupils. Not what I was hoping to hear. My DDs go to a good state school now.

However, I do think SOME Steiner schools do some good. (As almost all schools do.) Some of their philosophies on creativity and the arts are pretty good, imo. It's not that difficult to nick the best of them if you're planning to home ed.

I wouldn't touch Steiner with a bargepole.

But there is always a divide in classes regarding academia. I was at a state primary school until I was eight, and one of the main reasons I left was because I was not allowed to learn at the pace I could have done. For example, with reading, I was more interested in novels than picture books, but as picture books were on the curriculum, that was what I had to read. When I went to the Steiner school, I was much happier as I was allowed to read as much as I pleased. Likewise, several of my friends came to the Steiner school because they had considerable difficulty with reading and felt that the teachers at their state schools would not give them the time and attention that they required. They came to my school and were much happier.

So you understand how it is for a child who is underchallenged by a curriculum. This is but one criticism of Steiner education-though it has not been my experience, nor apparently yours, others have reported that this was their or their child's experience. Something to consider is, afaik, in a Steiner classroom instruction is provided to meet the middle skilll level of the class rather than the top.

Maybe it's different when you have to pick up the bits ... children of 9, 10 unable to decode - horribly disadvantaged. It's too big a price to pay, particularly as little children find it so easy to decode/read, then read for meaning. The older the child, the lower the self-esteem. Speech is hard- wired, reading involves cracking an alphabetic code. I've had some very distressed Steiner children referred to me.
That's not to say that some Steiner schools have an atmosphere where children aren't bullies, celebrate nature and each other and are non-judgmental.

But some Steiner schools are so dumbed down that anyone considering a Steiner education needs to look very, very carefully at the curriculum, and the possibility of having a teacher for a number of years with wacky ideas. On the other hand a gentle, sensitive education with an inspired teacher could be an advantage.

I like what you've said, allchildren, about the possible benefits of Steiner. There's no reason why the best of the Steiner approach can't be incorporated into an effective state school. Nobody would advocate bullying (though have heard some hideous things about bullying in a couple of Steiner places because things are observed but not addressed). Decent schools talk about positive relationships in PSHE, and advocate friendship skills in all kind of other ways. The outdoor classroom is getting a higher value all the time as many new schools are built on greener sites.

The one thing Steiner has going for it that state schools can't compete with is smaller classes, of course (fee paying schools will almost always have this on their side.)

It has appeared to me on many occasions that Steiner is a lifestyle, not just an educational choice for your children. (Though I do see that someone has commented that Steiner 'communities' have variation within them.)