Here goes - thoughts and feelings on Waldorf and Anthroposophy and Anthroposophists - Page 8

[GoBecGo]

littleanniesky, i see you've edited your post now, but i can see the quotes cut in the next post...

I'm so sorry i insulted you. I was not at ALL talking about how schools are run or anything like that, i was talking purely about parents who are part of (but not involved with running of) Waldorf schools and the changes they were having to make. I just meant that i know 3rd generation Waldorfers who for example would never consider giving a child non-organic food, and 1st generationers who BELIEVE this is the right way to go, but have a longish history (and healthy children!) of NOT only eating organic which means that their shift to all-organic can be more complicated. I have actually seen some parents let a child go hungry where there was no organic options and openly frowned on other parents feeding their hungry kids on the available if not ideal food. One set of parents felt that hunger was an unacceptable hardship in the presence of perfectly good but not ideal food, the others felt hunger was better than the poisons in the non-organic fayre. Both felt what they felt really quite strongly and were baffled and shocked by the others...

Likewise tv. I am NOT an anthroposoph, and am NOT involved with Waldorf, i just happen to know a bunch of people who are, but i do think too much tv is not good and in general i limit DD to 30mins a day or less total screen time. But did i watch most of the Olympics? Yes! Did i let my DD watch if she was around? YES! I know some of my anthroposoph friends would be horrified by that, really, horrified, but i know that a little tv won't kill her because i watched tv as a kid myself. It is much easier to live up to ideals when you haven't lived and survived the alternatives. SOmetimes the differences between the before-waldorf and after-waldorf appearance of a family can be subtle enough that in times of stress pre-Waldorf habits can creep back a little, and in that situation the other families can be VERY critical and unforgiving. I know a woman whose Waldorf main lesson teacher told her very bluntly that her youngest child (who he had never taught) was autistic because she watched movies and knitted while pregnant! A horrendous thing to say to someone even if it is true!

I was not implying the problems with the schools are because of 1st-gen parents, quite the opposite is true IMO - it is the ingrained and somehow so rigid traditions that can cause the most problems.

Overall i just meant that though Waldorf is a path that can theoretically be chosen by anyone, those already on it, though encouraging when others joined, can be pretty rigid about where and how the newcomers are allowed to walk on that path. Thus it is difficult to become a Waldorf family. Not impossible, many do it, many are happier having done it! But it is easier to belong already to ANY organisation, no? I think possibly this IS linked to the hurt that families who don't end up staying on the path feel. SOmetimes it must feel you are peeling your very skin off to change it for a new one in an attempt to become Waldorf "enough", and it must feel incredibly painful after paying your entry fee in blood, sweat, tears and sheer effort, that you're not "good enough" or that the whole thing was not at ALL what you thought it was.

I am so sorry if i hurt your feelings, truly i didn't see your interpretation coming at all. to you, i hope you stay, you have brought such valuable discourse here.

Bec

[LindaCl]

I don't know much about German Waldorf schools but the Waldorf schools here where I am are very different. One, they're not purist by any stretch of the imagination. Two, the former Waldorf students, some of them teachers now, with those I know showing to me that they have different levels of interest in anthroposophy, aren't demonstrating this kind of button-downed orthodoxy. One of my children's main lesson teachers is a case in point: the class sold non-organic pastries at the weekly bake sale and ordinary old Brand X junk food pizzas at school.

Those that are the most button-down purist about things look and sound no different than non-Waldorf organic and natural idealists anywhere else, and they tend to be the parents of still very young children at ages where parents still can exercise a high degree of control or influence. And with this pressure to conform and judgmentalism that has been described, all I know is that I raised two children completely outside the Waldorf community and have encountered this everywhere as a parent. The "mommy wars" are just one element of it. When I went to work leaving my oldest home in the care of his father, other mommies in our playgroup sniffed at me like I didn't even deserve to have children if this was how I was going to raise them. Waldorf parents frequently complain here of being pressured the other way, pressure from family members who believe "depriving" any child of the 21st century of its media manipulated, super-saturated day-glo materialistic excesses is full-on child neglect.

People are people, including Waldorf people. But any teacher who tells a parent their child was autistic because their mother watched movies and knitted while pregnant is really just way out there. That doesn't even resemble any Waldorf idea I've ever heard of. Sounds more like old wives tales like the more superstitious older women in my family used to say to me while I was pregnant (none of us are anthroposophists), warnings like "don't go see that ghost horror movie! you'll mark the baby!" (I don't even know what "mark the baby" means, but I was constantly warned about it. Worse, other children would be warned about it when they were throwing a tantrum or being rowdy around me, most of the time it was a "don't make that uhgga face, you'll mark the baby!")

[littleanniesky]

This last post made a lightbulb go off for me!

When you really get down to it, many many many of the complaints I have heard and had about our Waldorf school probably really are just our own version of the crud that takes place in varying degrees and shades in some form in any school which aims to set itself above the public or readily available school offerings. You can find rigidity, mismanagement, disorganization, superiority, narrow mindedness, patronizing, NO accountability, coolness, harsh discipline tactics, criticism, short sighted ness...all of it and more..or less in any school. Just as you can find beauty, reverence, wisdom, purity, mysticism, honor, music and artistic expression living in many schools too, not just Waldorf ones.

The only thing you can only find in a Waldorf school, as far as I know , theONE THING- is Anthroposophy. That is the one thing which cannot be found anywhere else.
What does that mean?...still not sure (one epiphany at a time!)

But I know this:
If it were a tree... The roots would be Anthroposophy, the trunk - would be Waldorf schools and the branches would be ALL possible ways a Waldorf school can be run. Some branches are thin and weak and easily broken. Some are stronger, more resilient to the elements. There really is no formula or tried and true rhyme or reason that guarantees success or failure. By design alone, it is the PEOPLE and how they interpret and implement and update the ideas laid out originally by Rudolf Steiner. This determines the health and success of a school. AND, to further complicate and personalize matters, the definition of success itself is subjective. For some, teachers and parents alike, a successful Waldorf school is a pure and simple organic, electronic free, school with 7 kids per class. Others want different things, more professionalism, more control, more input in how these beliefs are interpreted. I know what I wanted but just because it is not what you (this is the general "you") wanted, does that make me wrong or right???Who knows? As we have seen here, Steiners philosophies and predictions have morphed into beliefs which have given license to both build up and tear apart. And even though the curriculum for each grade is essentially pretty consistent, so much so that a second grade student in Seattle is probably learning much the same thing as a child in Germany, the WAY it is implemented is as different as the teachers themselves. And the WAY each teacher handles and reveres and copes with children and the everyday elements of a classroom full of children... is very different. There are sadly NO guarantees. And as we found, often no accountability. Many of you know this already, but some of us have to find out the hard way. Those are hard lessons, but ones that stick.

It is my personal observation, so not up for debate, that the dialogues and obsessions which arise over TV and food and cars and clothing and even the use of electronics, are not what Steiner intended us to be doing with our precious time. He saw divine capacities in people who, in that day and age, were given NO opportunity to discover their abilites. WE have decided that the above listed things interfere with or contribute to success in this realm..but that is just what we think. In another day and time, they banned books. We are not always right in our interpretations, and unfortunately, the realizing of these kinds of mistakes often do not come until long after we are gone.

I vividly remember, when we were making school decisions, when our children were toddlers, that all we wanted was for our precious children to stay as amazing and precious as we knew them to be. We worried that a school could undo the precious child we had created with God. And we stumbled upon Waldorf and it worked... until it didn't. I cannot say that our children would be any different had we made different choices.

I only know that when it began to unravel, we were not going to stay around and continue bailng out a sinking ship. Sadly, what I have seen happen, is that many parents become so convinced that no education is better than a Waldorf education that they stay in the face of extreme and obvious dysfunction. Much like the last poster said that to some no food was better than non-organic food. This belief paralyzes these parents and subsequently, the kids get the very short end of the stick. To these parents all I have to say is, if it means this much, go find a thriving Waldorf school, they do exist, all are not created equal.

[GoBecGo]

Quickly to explain, the teacher said (and i do know other antrhos who hold this belief) that any activity (knitting, reading, watching movies) which takes one's attention "out" of one'self is bad while pregnant as it disconnects one from the baby and can stilt its emotional connection/growth. I don't know whether it came from some misinterpreted sentence Steiner uttered or is just a traditional thing, but i do know several people (probably 70% of the Anthros i know) who believe it.

[DimitraDaisy]

Originally Posted by GoBecGo

Quickly to explain, the teacher said (and i do know other antrhos who hold this belief) that any activity (knitting, reading, watching movies) which takes one's attention "out" of one'self is bad while pregnant as it disconnects one from the baby and can stilt its emotional connection/growth.

:

I've no idea where this comes from, I've never even heard of it. (Thank god for that too!) But I seem to recall that in the (very anthroposophic) book 'Your incarnating child' it suggested making clothes for the baby while pregnant. I expect this included knitting. I also recall the same book suggesting that you focus your thoughts on the baby a few times each day for a few minutes (or something along those lines); but that was the extend of that.

I am not even going to try to explore the implications of the "don't do anything that takes you out of yourself while pregnant" idea. It just defies belief.

As for people telling ANY parent for ANY reason that they are to blame for their child being autistic (unless the parent did something outrageously wrong like drink or do drugs, which I am sure wasn't the case in this case)... that is just plain cruel. Do teachers think they are helping this way? Do they think at all before saying this kind of thing? If that is anthroposophy, then it is plain evil and I want nothing to do with it.

[ema-adama]

Originally Posted by littleanniesky

This last post made a lightbulb go off for me!

When you really get down to it, many many many of the complaints I have heard and had about our Waldorf school probably really are just our own version of the crud that takes place in varying degrees and shades in some form in any school which aims to set itself above the public or readily available school offerings. You can find rigidity, mismanagement, disorganization, superiority, narrow mindedness, patronizing, NO accountability, coolness, harsh discipline tactics, criticism, short sighted ness...all of it and more..or less in any school. Just as you can find beauty, reverence, wisdom, purity, mysticism, honor, music and artistic expression living in many schools too, not just Waldorf ones.

The only thing you can only find in a Waldorf school, as far as I know , theONE THING- is Anthroposophy. That is the one thing which cannot be found anywhere else.
What does that mean?...still not sure (one epiphany at a time!)

I think we would agree that Waldorf does not have monopoly on either the good or the bad aspects of education - these are elements that are found wherever there are parents, children, teachers, etc.

What I am really struggling to understand, as it would seem are many others, is why anthroposophy is so pivotal to the bad experiences with Waldorf.... no answers here, I am just not able to understand this.

But I know this:
If it were a tree... The roots would be Anthroposophy, the trunk - would be Waldorf schools and the branches would be ALL possible ways a Waldorf school can be run. Some branches are thin and weak and easily broken. Some are stronger, more resilient to the elements. There really is no formula or tried and true rhyme or reason that guarantees success or failure.

I am going to have to think about this - whether maybe there is a 'formula'. My mind likes to think that elements for success and failure can be isolated.

By design alone, it is the PEOPLE and how they interpret and implement and update the ideas laid out originally by Rudolf Steiner. This determines the health and success of a school.

I think we would agree.

AND, to further complicate and personalize matters, the definition of success itself is subjective. For some, teachers and parents alike, a successful Waldorf school is a pure and simple organic, electronic free, school with 7 kids per class. Others want different things, more professionalism, more control, more input in how these beliefs are interpreted. I know what I wanted but just because it is not what you (this is the general "you") wanted, does that make me wrong or right???Who knows?

This I would agree could be very problematic - whose definition of success is applied? And how is it agreed on? Essentially it comes down to parents and teachers and the differences and similarities. Rather a tricky issue (I am imagining here, as I have no personal experience to draw on)

As we have seen here, Steiners philosophies and predictions have morphed into beliefs which have given license to both build up and tear apart.

Completely aside, but what predictions did Steiner make?

And even though the curriculum for each grade is essentially pretty consistent, so much so that a second grade student in Seattle is probably learning much the same thing as a child in Germany, the WAY it is implemented is as different as the teachers themselves. And the WAY each teacher handles and reveres and copes with children and the everyday elements of a classroom full of children... is very different. There are sadly NO guarantees. And as we found, often no accountability. Many of you know this already, but some of us have to find out the hard way. Those are hard lessons, but ones that stick.

100% agreed!

It is my personal observation, so not up for debate, that the dialogues and obsessions which arise over TV and food and cars and clothing and even the use of electronics, are not what Steiner intended us to be doing with our precious time. He saw divine capacities in people who, in that day and age, were given NO opportunity to discover their abilites. WE have decided that the above listed things interfere with or contribute to success in this realm..but that is just what we think. In another day and time, they banned books. We are not always right in our interpretations, and unfortunately, the realizing of these kinds of mistakes often do not come until long after we are gone.

I think I would have to agree with you that what we think is right today is often found to be rather wrong a generation down the road... like Woody Allen said about lettuce being carcinogenic. (When DH tells me this to try and add another perspective to why TV is not that bad - I joke and reply that it would depend which pesticide it was grown with - but this is an aside)
I like the way you understand Steiner to be giving people the opportunity to discover their divine abilities.... and there has been so much pinned onto that with the goal kinda being lost in the process. But I do think that I would probably be a parent that would aspire to keeping my children's diet as organic as possible (certainly not to the point of starvation or deprivation - but as much as is possible), and would have definite boundaries with TV and electronic toys, and junk food and clothing etc. Although I do think there is something to be said with being more concerned with what you say and do, rather than what you eat and wear.... another aside.

I vividly remember, when we were making school decisions, when our children were toddlers, that all we wanted was for our precious children to stay as amazing and precious as we knew them to be. We worried that a school could undo the precious child we had created with God. And we stumbled upon Waldorf and it worked... until it didn't. I cannot say that our children would be any different had we made different choices.

Very clearly summarised (for me anyway)

I only know that when it began to unravel, we were not going to stay around and continue bailng out a sinking ship. Sadly, what I have seen happen, is that many parents become so convinced that no education is better than a Waldorf education that they stay in the face of extreme and obvious dysfunction. Much like the last poster said that to some no food was better than non-organic food. This belief paralyzes these parents and subsequently, the kids get the very short end of the stick. To these parents all I have to say is, if it means this much, go find a thriving Waldorf school, they do exist, all are not created equal.

I think this is rather wise. I would never expose my children to a dysfunctional experience for a prolonger period of time.... but I do carry the hope that when the time comes, I will be able to find a Waldorf school that is strong on all the fronts that are necessary.... that I will be able to take what I have learnt on this thread when I go "shopping for schools"

Originally Posted by GoBecGo

Quickly to explain, the teacher said (and i do know other antrhos who hold this belief) that any activity (knitting, reading, watching movies) which takes one's attention "out" of one'self is bad while pregnant as it disconnects one from the baby and can stilt its emotional connection/growth. I don't know whether it came from some misinterpreted sentence Steiner uttered or is just a traditional thing, but i do know several people (probably 70% of the Anthros i know) who believe it.

:
I know that my mum was discouraged from working when she was pregnant, which she found highly annoying.

Originally Posted by DimitraDaisy

:
As for people telling ANY parent for ANY reason that they are to blame for their child being autistic (unless the parent did something outrageously wrong like drink or do drugs, which I am sure wasn't the case in this case)... that is just plain cruel. Do teachers think they are helping this way? Do they think at all before saying this kind of thing? If that is anthroposophy, then it is plain evil and I want nothing to do with it.

OMG, I just cannot believe people say these things!!!
It is so 100% unacceptable to say something like that to a mother. I would be inclined to think that people cook up theories whether they are anthroposophists or not ... emotionally inept people exist everywhere. If I heard something like that being directed towards me or another parent - that teacher would certainly get a piece of my mind

[Deborah]

The pregnancy thing is a hoot. I stayed with my aunt when I was pregnant, many, many years ago. She was a deep-dyed, utterly passionate anthroposophist. I spent a large part of my pregnancy knitting and sewing, under her direct supervision. She was a waldorf handwork teacher

I guess she missed that particular bit of "dogma."

It does sound like the old superstition about "marking" babies. Common in many cultures, unfortunately.

[littleanniesky]

thanks

[LindaCl]

Originally Posted by Deborah

It does sound like the old superstition about "marking" babies. Common in many cultures, unfortunately.

One really common superstition is the one that says not to test cruel fate by buying, accepting or making any baby clothes for the new baby during the first three months of pregnancy. Brand new moms are warned that it can cause miscarriage or stillbirth.

[bczmama]

Actually, "marking" is not just a superstition, but also part of Rudolf Steiner's beliefs. I googled out of interest and google books popped up "From Comets to Cocaine" (previously published as "Health and Illness") by Steiner. On page 160 he states that what a woman does with her mind during the pregnancy will effect the fetus -- "She shapes and forms the child with what she imagines, feels and wills." On page 161 he also states that a pregnant woman who is startled by a man with an unusually crooked nose will have a child that has an unusually crooked nose, the feature appearing in mirror reverse. In fact, he disputes the concept of heredity in its entirety. All "unusual" characteristics (including "red skin tone" per his example) are deviations from some unexplained norm and are not inherited from the traits of the parents but are rather the result of a mother's thoughts and actions during pregnancy.

So apparently telling the mother of an autistic child "its all your fault" would be in line with anthro beliefs per Steiner.

No wonder a lot of special needs kids and their families might find Waldorf a hard row to hoe.

[Deborah]

Hi Bczmama,

What a perfect example of misunderstanding where Steiner is coming from. That entire set of books (all of the ones with titles like from _______ to _________ are based on conversations he had with the workmen who were building the Goetheanum. They are filled with crazy stuff like that. Do anthroposophists treat every word of these casual conversations as exact prescriptions to be followed to the letter? None of the ones I know do. Which doesn't mean that there aren't some gems amidst the dross, but it does take judgement to sort them out.

Those books are very popular with critics of anthroposophy, not surprisingly.

I could, of course, go and dig up 10 or 15 Steiner quotes which make it clear that he did understand heredity and saw it as playing a role in human life, but I don't think I'll bother. I have more interesting things to do.

[littleanniesky]

Originally Posted by bczmama

Actually, "marking" is not just a superstition, but also part of Rudolf Steiner's beliefs. I googled out of interest and google books popped up "From Comets to Cocaine" (previously published as "Health and Illness") by Steiner. On page 160 he states that what a woman does with her mind during the pregnancy will effect the fetus -- "She shapes and forms the child with what she imagines, feels and wills." On page 161 he also states that a pregnant woman who is startled by a man with an unusually crooked nose will have a child that has an unusually crooked nose, the feature appearing in mirror reverse.

eda adama, you asked what "predictions" I was refering to in my last long post, it was to beliefs such as these.

[karne]

Why, I'm wondering, would one assume that the conversation was casual? Would it be context, in that conversation didn't occur in a lecture format? Is that what makes the idea "crazy", that it was presented to workmen versus the more initiated? One set of ideas is presented to one group, another to another group? That's really interesting. I always find these moments so interesting because it seems there are some who feel strongly that we should minimize the "crazy" or offensive statements, and others who deeply live with conviction about such ideas. However, I too am uninterested in quoting chapter and verse of steiner as it never seems especially productive.

[bczmama]

"What a perfect example of misunderstanding where Steiner is coming from. That entire set of books (all of the ones with titles like from _______ to _________ are based on conversations he had with the workmen who were building the Goetheanum. They are filled with crazy stuff like that. Do anthroposophists treat every word of these casual conversations as exact prescriptions to be followed to the letter? None of the ones I know do. Which doesn't mean that there aren't some gems amidst the dross, but it does take judgement to sort them out."

Well -- as we have seen from what others have posted, there are a number of anthros. that do take Steiner's views on pregnancy seriously. The language I quoted makes clear how this viewpoint becomes integrated by some anthros. into their belief system.

This is another one of those points that drove me nuts about Waldorf. You try to understand what this philosophy is, run across the "crazy stuff" (as you so accurately call it) and are left trying to assemble coherent meaning which is virtually impossible. Then you have people telling you that the plain english meaning of the words, isn't the plain english meaning, or Steiner didn't mean what he said, etc., etc.

Also, I'm confused why the audience for this even matters. Are you saying Steiner lied to the workmen in these lectures?

I ended up googling this issue because I felt that those pooh-poohing it as being Steiner's viewpoint were likely wrong. The issue felt congruent (to me) with Steiner's emphasis on the interconnection between the physical and the spiritual.

And Deborah -- I'm finding it hard to believe you weren't aware of this, as the most incendiary version of this thought (that white women who read "negro books" will have "mulatto" babies) seems to be one of Steiner's points that waldorf skeptics most use to criticize Steiner.

[bczmama]

**

[ema-adama]

Originally Posted by bczmama

Actually, "marking" is not just a superstition, but also part of Rudolf Steiner's beliefs.

Unfortunately I cannot comment on Steiner quotes, but my take on this issue is that just because you can find it written that he said such and such does not automatically mean everyone believes him and that this is in some way fundamental to anthroposophy and Waldorf.
I can understand how tempting it is to find the totally wacky stuff to discredit everything that was ever said or written by Steiner. I find that a bit sad. I personally think there are things he did get right (elements in child development) and things that he also got horribly wrong. I chose to use my common sense to find what makes sense to me and reject what does not.

I googled out of interest and google books popped up "From Comets to Cocaine" (previously published as "Health and Illness") by Steiner. On page 160 he states that what a woman does with her mind during the pregnancy will effect the fetus -- "She shapes and forms the child with what she imagines, feels and wills." On page 161 he also states that a pregnant woman who is startled by a man with an unusually crooked nose will have a child that has an unusually crooked nose, the feature appearing in mirror reverse. In fact, he disputes the concept of heredity in its entirety. All "unusual" characteristics (including "red skin tone" per his example) are deviations from some unexplained norm and are not inherited from the traits of the parents but are rather the result of a mother's thoughts and actions during pregnancy.

All of the above I would categorise as nonsense.

So apparently telling the mother of an autistic child "its all your fault" would be in line with anthro beliefs per Steiner.

I think this is a bit of a leap... Anyone who I knew would be very seriously challenged on such a horrendous belief/theory

No wonder a lot of special needs kids and their families might find Waldorf a hard row to hoe.

Do you have personal experiences through friends who have been abused in this way, or are you working on an assumption?

Again, I am going to repeat that if people would like to discuss quotes on Steiner that another thread be opened. I do not find it very helpful and am more interested in peoples personal experiences with Waldorf and Anthroposophy - not theoretical debates.