Creating something better? I'm trying
Hello to everyone!
Once again, I want to thank the folks at "Mothering" for hosting such an informative, lively and mostly congenial debate/discussion on this board. As I mentioned earlier, there are precious few places on the internet where such debate is allowed and even encouraged. Someone here suggested that readers of this thread check out the discussions on the SJU list. When and if you do, please note that SJU is the *official* Waldorf education discussion list and debate and probing questions are not encouraged there. In fact, people who ask too many questions or who stir up too much debate are unsubscribed. (If you don't believe me, please read the list description. It states that a general approval of Waldorf is expected of all subscribers. People who probe too much or disagree with the "party" line are either kicked off or the moderator closes the thread. Not exactly "free and open" discussion!)
That is why the Waldorf Critics' List was started. It is, I believe, the single place on the Web where people can openly debate the pros and cons of Waldorf education. And if you think that the list is ONLY for critics, well, you haven't spent any time there! I have been on the list for about 4 years (came on as a Waldorf advocate!) and much of that time, there have been equal number of critics and advocates engaging in often-heated but almost always interesting discussions.
Someone here -- was it heartlight? -- commented that "there must be something good" about Waldorf if even the critics were attracted to it. My response is, once again, that I don't condemn or even criticize everything about Waldorf. (In fact, I once started a thread on the critics list called "What I Like About Waldorf Education!") For the record, I like the emphasis on play in the nursery and kindergarten; the lovely wooden, wool, cotton and silk toys and play frames; the baking and cooking; the tradition of storytelling; the fact that children of both genders learn to knit and sew and play the recorder; that children play outside in most kinds of weather.
The things I do not like is long, and include: Waldorf teachers often have little to no training beyond the Waldorf seminary course they are required to take; Waldorf child development theory has not changed in more than 80 years and is not based on modern understanding of how humans develop and learn; Waldorf pretends to be flexible, but is in fact rigid; children who *want* to and *can* read before the age of 7 to 9 are actively discouraged from doing so, and made to feel ashamed; Waldorf teachers often attempt to discourage children from critical thinking before the age of 14, because that is what Steiner said: the "artwork" done in Waldorf schools in nursery through at least grade 4 is not really "art" at all, but a series of rigidly dictated spiritual exercises aimed not at allowing expression of creativity, but at putting the child in touch with the supersensible world; Waldorf science is not the science accepted by the mainstream community; myth is taught as fact; punishment and discipline often are "medieval," and include shaming children by placing dunce caps on their head, making children stand in front of the class with their "silver swords" (arms) crossed over their chests, or having them turn their shirts inside out; Waldorf teachers' belief in karma can prevent them from intervening in bullying situations ....
Underlying ALL OF THIS is my basic complaint, which is that Waldorf schools do not disclose to parents the full truth about the education and training that the schools offer, which is this: Waldorf schools are the parochial schools of Anthroposophy. Just as Catholic schools teach and guide children according to the tenets set forth by the Roman Catholic church, so do Waldorf schools teach and guide children according to tenets set forth by Steiner's church. The difference? Roman Catholic schools OPENLY ASSERT their philosophy with signs and crucifixes and openly garbed (often) clergy. They believe in their philosophy and methods, and describe them openly.
Waldorf schools, however, pretend to be non-sectarian. Parents of all -- or no -- religious faith or path are told that the school is suitable. If Waldorf was open and honest about its strict adherence to "Steiner says," well, then people such as myself would avoid it, and there would be no Waldorf critics. (Or at least, very few.) I am convinced that if Waldorf would stand up and proudly proclaim the truth, parents would flock to enroll their children! Even Eugene Schwartz (Waldorf master teacher, author of "Millenial Child" and a major force in the Waldorf movement) agrees. He has said, in public, that Waldorf schools need to own who they are, and to tell parents that children at the schools will have "one religious experience after the other." At the now-famous 1999 Sunbridge College lecture. Schwartz basically warned his fellows in the Waldorf movement that even parents who do not have the whole truth know, instinctively, that something is going on of which they have not been told.
People I know who have worked in Waldorf schools -- both as teachers and as teachers' aides -- have talked about how faculty at the schools work to keep parents who are unaware of the depths of anthroposophy in the school from delving too deeply. One statement sticks out in my mind. "Parents who are not anthros. just can't handle the truth," she said. "They'd be scared away if they knew teachers made decisions about their kids by what's revealed in their nightly meditations on the child's destiny. They wouldn't get it and they wouldn't like it. So we don't tell them." Another former teacher said that she was told that as long as she did not dedicate her life to Steiner, she would not be accepted by the rest of the teachers. Another one told me that she was disturbed by the way parents and children were talked about in faculty meetings, which are closed to parents. "Parents were looked at as baggage that the teachers had to carry to do their job with the children," she told me. She remembered how other teachers at her school spoke of a child conceived through in-vitro fertilization as "not quite human." "They said {the child} was 'transparent, without a real soul,'" she said.
By joining the ever-growing public outcry for Waldorf schools to be honest about who they are, I believe I *am* doing what I can to create better Waldorf schools. Yes, I was attracted to Waldorf schools, but I was attracted by deceptive advertising. If Waldorf schools delivered what they offered -- a progressive, arts based, non-sectarian education -- I would not be spending an hour writing this. My children would still be at their former school. I could use this time for something else. Unfortunately, that is not the case. So here I am.
Lisa
