The True Nature of Steiner Education

[maverick]

Before putting your children into a Steiner school you should read the following post on Professor Colquhoun's blog:

The true nature of Steiner (Waldorf) education. Mystical barmpottery at taxpayers? expense. Pt.1

www.dcscience.net/?p=3528

Hmm. In 1988 I brought my children from London to the West Midlands to attend a Steiner school. My youngest was 4. Everything was fine till he went into Class 1 (age 6) and a new teacher. In Steiner schools, from Class 1 onwards, the children have the same teacher till class 8. When he was in the 2nd term of class 2, the teacher accused my child of doing something he didn't do. He was accused of writing "R... is a poo" with chalk on one of the tiny blackboards that the children practised their letters on. When my child N continued to deny this, R (the teacher) made him stand in front of the class every morning interrogationg him to try and get a confession out of him. Even if N had done it, it was such a trivial thing - I'd taught 15 year old lads in Tower Hamlets and the word Poo didn't exist in their vocabulary. Anyway, N was miserable and also told me about incidents where other children had been hit or locked in cupboards as a punishment. I had to attend a meeting in which I was browbeaten by a group of 4 or 5 teachers and told "Lying must be cured"! Eventually my child refused to go to school and I withdrew him. About 3 years later I had a phone call from the teacher who wanted to come to our home and speak to me and N. When he arrived he told us that another child had confessed to the "crime" and R the teacher wanted to apologise. He also wanted N to return to the school. N, with a lot of coercion from me, returned for a term but he was unhappy that I had to take him out again. We reverted to home education which we'd been doing in the interim. To cut a long story short, N did GCSEs, went on to 6th form college and thence to university. We often meet people who were either children or parents from that school and none of them has a good word to say about it. The whole thing was a nightmare. Oh and the children weren't allowed to play football because the teachers said the ball resembled a human head! If Steiner were alive today I'm sure he'd tear his hair out.

'Chicken pox in adulthood is really nasty - you're unlucky not to have had it.'

SIL's ex-partner got it from their sons. He wound up in ICU with poxes all over his lungs and inside his throats.

We are involved in a local steiner playgroup. It's great fun and a lovely antidote to normal playgroups. Nice toys, interesting people, calm environment, good singing.

However, I've always been aware that a lot of very strange stuff underpins the Steiner movement and that it hasn't been allowed to modernise.

I've always laughed about the milk teeth thing...in our family we've always been early readers but late with our teeth.

There is a 2nd post on DC's Improbable Science about 16 possible Steiner Waldorf Free Schools.

My children attend a Steiner School. They are up to date with all thier vaccines. Its our choice, not the school's.

One of my children has a disability, and not the only child attending with special needs. There are no 'weird' ideas about disability here.

There is a lot of unclear/untrue things written about Steiner, but it really is a good alternative to State school.

The class sizes are smaller, more individual attention. More focus on learing at the child's pace and flexibility to adapt to each child individual needs.

It suits some children more than others just as state schools do. I/ my freinds/ family have all been accused or blamed for things that weren't our fault in state school too. It not something that is exclusive to Steiner.

As for SATS my eldest child attended at state Cof E Primary, but didnt sit the sats and it made no difference what so ever when they started secondary school.

Its a personal choice, but I would prefer Steiner over State school any day. Its really isn't as bad as you read. There is good and bad in every type of education, much is down to the school morale or the individual teacher. I've experienced several crap ones in my days at state school.

For what it's worth, I went to a Steiner school and thoroughly enjoyed it. It wasn't perfect in every respect but on balance it was a lot better than the experience had by many of my friends in state and mainstream private. No education system is perfect and if we were to cast fresh eyes on our own national curriculum we would probably be aghast at some of the priorities/principles. The experience for a child attending the school is very different to the (admittedly) quite far out theories laid out in the anthroposophical literature. I experienced a loving and nurturing environment and also learned a great deal besides that in the national curriculum. I understand that it's not for everyone and in fact I decided to put my own dd in an independent school after kindergarten. However, I find it really odd to see how chippy parents are about an alternative education system. If it isn't for you - fine. To be so threatend by it that you go to this trouble....says more about the person than the system if you ask me.

nettlefairy it's not much trouble to make a comment on mumsnet, what do you mean? Are you suggesting that Prof. Colquhoun is threatened by Steiner education?

Much talk in the US too re Charter schools, similar concerns to those about UK Free Schools. Liz Ditz is always good on SEN and this post is relevant to this thread.

I have an adult friend with learning difficulties (brain damage as a baby). She went to a Steiner school and said it was brilliant for her precisely because she was never going to be very good at traditional academic subjects. She certainly didn't feel treated badly for having a disability.

She now sends her kids to state schools and vaccinates them without hesitation, btw.

I wouldnt send my DC to a Steiner school, but am much less convinced than I used to be about how bizarre it is supposed to be.

In response to your question, restlessnative, no I'm not suggesting that the one single comment on this thread is "too much trouble" but if you consider the amount of hours that must have gone into the vast number of "don't go to steiner" blogs and other many highly emotive conversations on mumsnet, often when the parent doesn't have any any personal experience. I just wrote as I don't personally care if people send their children to Steiner or not but I get all itchy when I see hypocracy and I do see a lot of it on the streams. Certainly I'd say that you can't judge one school as being representative of all schools so if you have a bad expeience at one, it could be due to many other factors and I'm always sympathetic to parents who have had a bad experience in education for their children, for whatever reason and wherever it occurs. It's just really interesting to me to see how much effort is put into it by people who at first sight have no agenda...and then (I admit, I did a little snooping at other posts) I realise that many of those who list "have a look at these links" etc aren't parents at all but in education, with very strong, often financial agendas, not always so honestly displayed themselves!!! Have a look and see if you don't believe me...

nettlefairy:

many of the parents who post here and elsewhere about Steiner ed have had a very great deal of experience of Steiner Waldorf education, that's why they write about it.
Some are traumatised. Sometimes it's taken a while to work out what happened, to realise they were lied to, as samay says above. Do you think they shouldn't have the right to do so? In what possible way can it be hypocritical? What exactly is it that's making you itchy?

Are you suggesting that there are people on mumsnet with 'financial agendas' who are posting links on Steiner threads for profit, or to influence mumsnetters' financial decisions? I know there are some big hitters out there circling our education system, can you elucidate?

IIjkk - it's the anthroposophical understanding of disability that raises concerns.

yes, there was a good analyses of this on Holford Watch, related to the state funded Steiner Waldorf Hereford Academy. Not that I disagree with limiting screen-time, like most parents. No access to TV & computers has a precise anthroposophical 'spiritual' reason in Steiner of course, regardless of Aric Sigman, which ought to be explained to parents before enrolling their dcs. I realise being honest about this could limit the client-base considerably but it would be the ethical thing to do, imo. And I promise I'm not drumming up support for any prep school here

You mean Ahriman? To be fair to Steiner, he didn't have a TV himself since he died in the 20s. This is later anthroposophists imagining that Steiner would imagine Ahriman speaks out of the TV.

Hello to you btw samay. Did you feel anyone took you seriously when this happened? Hope things are OK now.

samay-A Happy Idiot!

Steiner children often join main stream school in year 2. It often seems so stressful for them to struggle and play catch up while almost everyone else in the class blossoms. They end up needing huge amounts of TA time to progress and it really must knock their confidence to take so long to catch up and integrate with peers.

My kids thrived in main stream and it provided everything they needed in terms of play and very basic academic stimulus.I understand the main stream approach might not be for everyone but my own pesonal experience of Steiner has been quite negative. Steiner people always seem to me distant, superior and self rightous - like they are above normal people. Once a Steiner couple even told me 'our children wont go to main stream school with all those vile children' (meaning normal kids)

We were approached by a Steiner school collecting signatures to get the gov funding.He got a flea in his ear.

We are clearly not a Steiner family,they wouldn't even let us through the gate I suspect so going up to a family you don't know,are never going to be allowed to attend your school(huge waiting list allegedly and my kids wouldn't be their type) is a mighty cheek imvho.

My kid's school is in the same catchment so the funding they get will surely infringe on my kids school all at the tax payers expense.

I had no idea this free school thing was to include selective schools.We the tax payer pay for schools our dc aren't allowed to attend. How unfair is that!

I then started to launch into the sect thing but dp dragged me away.DD was on the Steiner stall(unbeknown to us) making a hedgehog out of a teasel so she wasn't mighty impressed.

great new blog post from a mother in the US on Waldorf (Steiner)

You have to click on 'view the reply to...' to get the drift of the comments. Her replies are right to the point.