Failed our steiner toddler group

[Orangeflower7]

I was looking for a smaller more relaxed kind of toddler group for my ds (2.5). Got a bit fed up with the big busy groups lots of ride ons etc..so tried the steiner group. Just met one of the mums from it today who is 'sad it didn't work out for me' and am feeling a bit of a failure.

I'll explain a bit. It went on for ages and we all had to sit round the table and make a woolen spider which to be honest the children were to young to do- ds got frustrated and threw it away. It seemed that it was for the mums really, (craft) I found it stressful as I had to help make the activity so much whereas ds wanted to go play, and there was no choice of activity, all the mums were sat doing the craft activity so the children who were playing didn't have much input really.

The routine was like this (over 2 hrs) Craft-then (adults make snack which children couldn't eat just yet) -singing-then wash hands (line up) then-sit up and eat snack- then story.

I just found it too much direction and sitting down stuff for a 2 year old..although the (mostly little girls) other children seemed very obedient

It is a shame as it would have been a nice change...didn't find it very child centred though. Please tell me it's not just my ds is it, I do know a little about early years and the emphasis is a lot on play, (adult led and child initiated, choice and independence, how does that sit then with steiner?

So back to the big groups we go.

I think it would be very difficult for 4y old ds not to start to learn to read before the age of 7. he is so very eager to learn!

I actually think the US has no business sizing up any other country in the world where human and civil rights are concerned.

It is very interesting to me, as someone who stumbled upon anthroposophy and had only a small brush with it, to see the mischaracterisation of criticism of its schools as 'crusades', 'fringe', 'marginal', 'zealotry', 'obsessive', and especially 'rabid', but comparisons of individual critics of Steiner to David Irving hits a new low.

It leaves a bad taste in the mouth to see the experiences of a child in a Steiner school held up and used against her, presumably by people who have links to her childhood teachers. This smacks of a massive betrayal of confidence. Further revelations from the blog you linked to, Tizian, about Alicia Hamberg or 'Zoooey' or whatever she calls herself can only have been gathered through stalking her on the net: she apparently can't sleep without sleeping pills, and has seen a psychologist -- and this has exactly what to do with her contentions about Steiner schools? That blog you linked to is nothing more than a hatchet job presenting the fruits of internet stalking of someone who has opposed a cult.

Why were American anti Waldorf campaigners banned from a discussion forum?

Mousymouse, my steiner-educated former neighbour wanted to learn to read when she saw my own DD4 ploughing through her little 'I Can Read' books and begged DD to help her, so DD did. The neighbour picked it up, at age 5.5 ish, long before her milk teeth had fallen.

mathanxiety Tizian is Excalibor, the blogger.

@mathanxiety Nothing that describes her at the blog is based on betrayal of confidence by anyone who knows her (they have all been silent as clams about her), just on what she has written about herself (and me), at her blog, at twitter, and in two public secular humanist discussion forums critical of Steiner Waldorf education, where we both have participated at different times.

So all that stuff about her childhood experiences is gleaned from her own posts, and there are people who really know her who could weigh in and betray her privacy if they so wished, but they are silent as clams (for the moment anyway)? Your post reads like a veiled threat against this woman. You are in touch with people who knew her as a child, or know where to find them, and say so in your blog (you helped her find a TA from her old school). If I were her (and I am not, I assure you) I would find that creepy in the extreme, if not alarming. The tone of the blog, with the personal information bandied about, is distasteful in the extreme.

Collecting bits and bobs of information that a critic has posted on the net and assembling it in a blog as a means of discrediting her, without shame (as you posted it here without any disclaimer) speaks volumes about the sort of organisation you claim not to represent.

I'm not interested in finding out more about her than she has written the last years on the net.

I did not start to write the blog post until she answered a friendly invitation for a cup of tea some summers ago at a well known public tea house in Stockholm, where we both live, to hear more from herself about her school time, after she had criticized me personally extensively in a Swedish public discussion forum after she and others had been banned from Mumsnet as single issue crusaders (not allowed at Mumsnet), and then answered my friendly invitation for a cup of tea at the tea house telling that she'd rather have tea with Satan.

But that was then.

The end of the blog well reflects our relation now.

I never said you were interested in finding out more about her than she herself has posted.

What is deeply creepy is that you have gone through what she has posted all over the net and on Twitter for a few years and put it in your blog. What do details about sleeping pills or seeing a psychologist have to do with honest debate on steiner education? A tendency to make nasty insinuations about someone's mental state is not a hallmark of good faith or open debate.

And why do you think anyone might be interested in hearing her reaction to your invitation to have a cuppa in Stockholm under the famous elms or anywhere else for that matter? Do you really think people are stupid enough not to suspect there must be two sides to that little vignette?

The entire blog entry is heavy handed and nasty, and I fully believe you when you say the end of the entry is a reflection of the state of play between you now, but I don't see it as you seem to imply it is. What I see is more of an uneasy calm.

Was the entry conceived as a warning of some kind to others who dare to apostasise?

As she is the possibly most talkative and somewhat manic ambivalent pro/anti-Steiner commentator in English on the net in Europe, I thought it is of some importance to critics/supporters to understand what she writes.

Hmmm AWE have an interesting website....again seemingly without a straight answer to any criticism.

Tizian, knowing who you are and who you are employed by, this looks like a pathetic witch-hunt of a previously traumatised pupil without addressing any of the concerns raised on this thread or other other common criticisms of Steiner education and anthrosophy.

It's all a bit pathetic really.

Yes, i'd like to thank Tizian for bringing my attention to the various groups, websites and blogs on this discussion. It has helped to solidify my complete disbelief in Steiner and these practices.

Up until the point that Tizian arrived I was enjoying this discussion. However it just proves for me that there is a very creepy side to Steiner. I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole.

What say you now Wabbit? If you come back I'll be most surprised - could someone like Tizian find out who you are and get you a telling off? Scary.

Yes, Madam, me too . I'm very sceptical about Steiner but did appreciate the conversation with Wabbit as I felt there was a chance that she was being genuine and although not likely to sway me, at least willing to have an honest discussion (although her attitude to Cote was a bit ).

Anyway, seems we've been flagged-up again as a threat.

Why would any organisation that DIDN'T behave as a cult need to employ someone to do what Tizian is doing? Surely it's the old "protests too much" argument here?

Who knew that this movement of sing-songy teachers, wishy-washy painting, wooden toys and breadmaking was quite so cloak-and-dagger? This thread has been quite enlightening. It certainly doesn't make you trust them more.

I have corresponded with Zooey and others from MN for a good few years now and want to let everyone here know that as well as her being an incredibly lovely, interesting and thoughtful person, her research is outstanding. She has been able to unravel something that no one else could. That is what terrifies the movement, and like any meticulous researcher, she has never stopped digging and asking questions.

What puzzles me is that Tizian requested that Zooey be banned due to her not being a mother and a single issue poster, if I recall this correctly, he first appeared as Eva52 pretending to be a mother and was outed due to his particular writing style..

I also need to warn posters that by clicking on Tizian's links he will be looking at your ip address.

Concerned readers may be interested to know that Zooey has responded on her blog here

I don't think a telling off would be in order - do you? Why should it? have I said anything that is so detrimental to the movement, or SW education that it would warrent being chastised? I try to be reasonable in everything I do, probably to make up for the level of unreasonableness that I metered out when I was young.

The SW ed world is so small that anyone reading what I am writing would probably be able to figure out who I am... I'm not concerned.

Can't remember the article about Synapse pruning at the age of seven which is a pity as it was fascinating - it's about the myelination of synapses that are freqently used and the unused synapses die off because the pathways are not myelinated.(could possibly have been Sally Goddard Blythe, but I was reading heaps about brain development at the time and can't find all my links) The organ maturation thing came about because I was talking to my optician about DS's eyesight when he had a test this year and she asked about computer games - warning that if he uses them before the age of seven it could damage his eye development, which is not complete until seven.

Have not read all of the posts since I was last on, some new blood I take it I'm not taking this as seriously as others seem to be, have been frustrated with it but really what I do I have been open about, I don't pretend to be so well read in Steiner's teachings that I can defend everything, and wouldn't if I had anyway.

What I do believe is that I approach my work in a way that is honest, meaningful and conscientious.

How incredibly weird. The thread has been an eye opener!

Wabbit, the difficulty for me and many other parents who have had troubling experiences with Steiner is that when we take the time look at data that is presented from the SWSF to support Steiner education - including researchers such as Sally Goddard Blythe we find that the majority of them have links to Anthroposophical orgs.

Wabbit, you said: 'I'm not taking this as seriously as others seem to be'.

I wish you would. For all your talk of baking bread, singing songs and your work being 'honest and meaningful' as parents we simply cannot afford to be sentimental nor flippant about our children's education.

My god Barking, that's scary!

TheRealBMJ, which bit? Tis all scary

Yes it all is but particularly the checking IP addresses thing. We-eird!