Please talk to me about Steiner Schools

[DoTheBestThingsInLifeHaveFleas]

Hi there

Please bear with me, I may ramble....

There is a Steiner School opening near to where I live. It will open when DD is due to start school. I do not know much about them apart from the prospectus information and an informal chat with the headmaster. It will be a free school funded by the local government. Initially I like the ethos, but do have some concerns.

My DP and I were both state educuated and feel massively let down by the system and that it really prevented us from making more of our lives. Only our wonderful parents support ensured we are where we are today, and although we both take personal responsibility for our actions, we want better for our DD. I really do not want her going to a school where the kids make you feel that 'learning is for geeks and saddos' and that she has to be naughty and rude just to try and fit in (Yes this is what I felt I had to do and until I started to behave badly to try and fit in life at school was unbearable. And yes I am bitter!!!) or aspiring to be a WAG when she grows up. DP was the other extreme and one of the ones who made my life miserable. He is a bright and intelligent person, and was bored and under stretched at school and so started trouble and distracted others. Again we both take personal responsibility for our actions, but really at 12 - 16 years old it's hard to understand the impact you are having on your life.

So anyway, do we go for a private school, which will be very hard financially (although a sacrifice we are willing to make) and also have its pitfalls, or could a Steiner school be the right move? Any comments welcome, thank you in advance.

[Copperbeech33]

yes, seriously, occultic.

The responses you are posting show how beautifully they have tucked you up.

You are totally blind.

Open your eyes and look at the foul bilge underneath that faux calm and beautiful surface.

They taken you in hook line and sinker, haven't they.

Ask your self this. Why is the internet full of support groups for Steiner Waldorf survivors?

Why does the Steiner movement have, or need such a massive legal department, why do they take out restraining orders against so many ex parents and pupils, why do they take legal action against so many websites, why are so many Steiner threads and articles so heavily censored?

Do you think mainstream schools require support groups for survivors, massive legal departments and heavy censorship?

[Kro5]

My experience totally of any Steiner interaction/questions being trolled. I live in the town where the first State funded Steiner school was built. 1.3m it cost, all and I mean ALL of my peers and friends that initially sent their kids there have withdrawn them from the school, with varying harrowing stories to boot. Really bullying (in the playround for the parents and kids) approach. I fyou don't fit, you won't fit. Awful philosophy - and if you look at their accounts it lookds as though they can't run a business as they will be out of business within 10 years with their ongoing debt on debt each year. Awful waste of tax payers money on what is little more than a cult. PLEASE AVOID. Do research Newsnight Steiner investigation and Waldorf Watch if you are even vaguely thinking of it.

[sarahz12345]

This poem is written by an ex-teacher, Pete Snow, at Edinburgh Steiner School who I have heard various stories about //www.plsnow.co.uk/body-art/. I think this says it all...

"Ah, you lassies
who make such colourful comics
of your skin!
I’d like to take you one by one
to a quiet place
with a bag of liquorice allsorts
and a bottle of Irn Bru
and turn your bright pages
at leisure
and, like Jimmy and his Magic Patch,
embrace the resulting adventures."

Duping Delight I'd call that

[mathanxiety]

I like the creativity

Well you are in for a nasty shock in Steiner then.

There is no creativity. It all looks creative, natural - wood and stones and natural fabrics and soft colours, etc - and it comes across as very touchy feely, but Steiner schools are schools where children can get art 'wrong'. It is incredibly prescriptive.

And it's not touchy feely either. They turn a blind eye to bullying, because their main aim is the incarnation of the soul of the child, and whatever journey each soul is that is hunky dory by them. Your child might be the bully. Your child might be the victim - nobody will step in and offer guidance or support.

They tell you none of this. You are wafting along on a cloud of the buzz words they know parents want to hear - 'child-centered', etc - and qualities are suggested to you. They know you have some qualms about the state schools or the outwardly religious schools or you wouldn't have knocked on their door, and they feed you the various things they suspect will hit your spot. You fill in the blanks yourself and project whatever it is that you are looking for onto the Steiner school.

I say outwardly religious because Steiner is actually an esoteric cult, with inner rings of initiation, but they won't tell you any of that even when they have your child there being taught maths by means of gnomes and performing eurhythmic dancing and thanking the sun god for the gift of each new day.

[mathanxiety]

I used to teach in a Catholic school and I was quite disturbed how the younger kids were guilt-tripped into taking part in the holy communion and ended up very awkwardly taking a piece of "christ's flesh' following the spoken words from the bible- ‘I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.’-- if that's not quackery then I don't know what is!?

Nice bit of blatant, ignorant bigotry there, and the words you include do not get said at Mass.

Maybe you are so offensive about Catholic schools and Catholicism because you know that the RC church considers Steiner/Waldorf schools and the anthroposophy that lies beneath it all to be a cult.

One of the many differences between Steiner schools and RC schools is that RC schools are completely upfront about the fact that the school is religious, what sort of religious observance is required on the part of students, and the fact that children will do religious ed and learn about Catholicism.

Steiner schools are all about the calming grounds and the soothing colours, etc... Anthroposophy? Oh that....