OK. Having defined some terms and after surveying the territory, let’s look at some items from the Waldorf Watch “news" page. Among other advantages, this will remind us that Steiner’s occult doctrines still rule the Waldorf roost today. These "news" items also expand the discussion to include other central Waldorf beliefs. In this sense, what you are about to read presents a fairly comprehensive portrait of Waldorf schooling as it exists in the world today.

We will focus in, again, on the three incarnations that occur during childhood; these are the incarnations of greatest concern in Waldorf education. Belief in these incarnations, and in the invisible bodies that young people come to possess, is fundamental in the Waldorf universe, and it will lead us to many other Anthroposophical beliefs. We will wander far afield, following the twists and turns of Anthroposophical thinking. In the process, we will get a fairly broad sense of the overall Waldorf worldview, even if we do not learn much more about the incarnations and "bodies" that Waldorf faculties believe in. (There isn't much more to learn, really, since these things are fictitious.)

Because the items were written as separate pieces rather than as sections of a single essay, you will discover some repetition and overlap. If you come across material you are already familiar with, please just skip ahead.

Teething

A Stitch in Time Teaches New Skills - Part of school's curriculum is knitting, sewing and cross stitching, which shows them how to be patient and gives a way to bond with their families ... The second-grade class at the Waldorf School of Orange County [California, USA] was practicing knitting skills Thursday afternoon in a bi-weekly handwork class ... The private school, tucked away near the Talbert Nature Preserve, incorporates handwork into its curriculum. The school starts students in first grade with weaving and knitting, and trains students to build upon such skills with each grade, said handwork teacher Angie Meier.  

[1-23-2011  

http://www.dailypilot.com/news/tn-dpt-0123-itc-20110122,0,3347736.story] 

What's Left Out

Secular Waldorf?

From subpages.com:

Oak Meadow is touted by many as a secular Waldorf inspired curriculum and for many it is Waldorf enough. However, for people who want a true Waldorf education this program has disappointed many. The benefits of the program are that they don't push the child to learn too much too fast ... The program is laid back and not rigorous ... The concept of the curriculum is fantastic, but the reality is that it is not exactly how the curriculum turns out to be. For example, in 2nd grade reading you are barely getting past reading 3 letter words. Some people love it and others really dislike it. If you don't mind things moving at a slow pace then you will probably be in the first group.  

[2-6-2011  

http://hubpages.com/hub/Oak-Meadow]

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Response:

Oak Meadow is a Waldorf school offering online instruction as well as homeschooling materials.

The crucial question — one that bears on the efforts to create Waldorf charter schools and free schools — is whether it is possible to create a “secular” curriculum based on the Waldorf model. Waldorf teacher training usually includes extensive instruction in Anthroposophical occultism. [See, e.g., “Teacher Training".] Steiner himself stated that Waldorf teachers should be “true Anthroposophists” who are deeply devoted to the Anthroposophical worldview. [See, e.g., “Here’s the Answer”.] Efforts to make Waldorf schooling seem unconnected to occultism have usually been little more than ploys. Advocates of Waldorf education are quite aware of the need for good public relations. [See, e.g., "PR".]

If you try to strip the occultism out of the Waldorf approach, what are you left with? Very little. Every part of the Waldorf curriculum and Waldorf methodology is rooted in occultism. [See, e.g., “Curriculum” and “Methods”.] The reason kids aren’t taught to read until they are seven, for instance, is that Waldorf teachers are waiting for the kids' “etheric bodies” to incarnate. If you don’t believe in such occult nonsense as etheric bodies, then there is no reason to postpone reading lessons. Indeed, postponing such lessons may be permanently harmful, depriving children of the benefits of early-childhood education.

Waldorf schools emphasize art (for occult reasons — see “Magical Arts”), they put little academic pressure on the students (for occult reasons — see “Academic Standards at Waldorf” and "Thinking Cap"), they emphasize fairy tales and myths (for occult reasons — see “Fairy Tales” and “The Gods”), they aim to educate the whole child (for occult reasons — see “Holistic Education”), and so on. You can imitate these procedures, and perhaps your children will derive benefits. Certainly art is a good thing, and kids shouldn't be pushed too hard, and myths are often quite nice, and educating the heart and hands as well as the head sounds very good. But you don’t need to turn to Waldorf schools (with their cargo of occult beliefs) to find attractive educational options. In any event, a better strategy is to get to know your children, understand what they need, and try to provide it by selecting from among sensible, real-world educational resources.

"Secular" Waldorf programs are generally geared to the occult agenda of Waldorf education — manifestation of the etheric body, manifestation of the astral body, development of initial stages of clairvoyance, etc. — without say so. In other words, they are not secular at all; they have generally misrepresented themselves. But this is standard for all types of Waldorf schools — they almost always conceal their purposes. It is not hard to dig below the Oak Meadow surface to find Steiner's occultism. Thus, the most significant of Steiner's educational principles is that children develop through three seven-year stages. [See "Most Significant".] In the first stage, children develop their physical bodies and their wills; in the second stage, children develop their etheric bodies while living mainly through their emotions; in the third stage, when they develop their astral bodies, they finally start to gain the ability to think for themselves. While avoiding the weirdest parts of this terminology, Oak Meadow embraces the schedule: "The threefold nature of the child manifests through consistent developmental stages ... According to Dr. Steiner, The first stage begins at birth and continues to the change of teeth [i.e., age seven], and during this stage the will, expressing itself through physical growth and movement, is the predominant force in the child's life. The second stage begins at the change of teeth and progresses through the onset of puberty [i.e., age 13], with the focus upon the child's emotional nature. In the third stage, the faculty of thinking predominates, and the child begins to explore the world of thought ...." — Dr. Lawrence Williams, "Oak Meadow and Waldorf", http://www.oakmeadow.com/resources/articles/oak-meadow-waldorf.php.

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Oak Meadow's attitude toward computers is intricate. "[T]he workplace of the future will require good computer skills. Therefore, we want Oak Meadow students to learn to use computers effectively." ["Oak Meadow and Computers" [http://www.oakmeadow.com/resources/articles/oms-computers.php].] But typical Anthroposophical concerns nonetheless crop up. • Oak Meadow suggests that children not use computers until they are at least 11 or 12 years old. • The school worries that computers may inhibit "[l]earning that transforms the individual, which is the kind of learning Oak Meadow encourages." • And the school is concerned that using computers "tends to inhibit the development of the will and the integration of mind and body." ["Homeschooling and Computers", http://www.oakmeadow.com/resources/articles/homeschooling-computers.php].] In Anthroposophy, the will is considered a separate faculty [see "Will"], and the integration of mind and body is part of the overall process of incarnation that lies at the heart of Waldorf schooling. Computers, and indeed all forms of modern technology, are viewed askance in Waldorf schools; they are generally associated with the demon Ahriman. [See "Ahriman".]

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Disclosure statement: Lawrence Williams, of Oak Meadow, taught at the Waldorf school I attended, but not during my years there. He greatly admired our headmaster, John Fentress Gardner: "John Gardner had been a strong guiding light for me: my mentor and my inspiration in education." [http://www.oakmeadow.com/resources/articles/oak-meadow-trilogy.php]. Mr. Gardner was a true-believing Anthroposophical occultist who strove to make Waldorf education seem unobjectionable to average Americans. This effort collapsed, eventually. [See "Scandal".] Mr. Gardner oversaw the construction of our school, which was designed to resemble conventional American schools — the odd architectural touches found in many European Steiner schools were avoided. For a similar reason, Mr. Gardner published such misleading statements as this: “There was nothing in Rudolf Steiner that [famed American authors] Thoreau and Emerson and Whitman would not have approved wholeheartedly.” — John Fentress Gardner, “The Founding of Adelphi’s Waldorf School,” ONE MAN’S VISION: In Memoriam, H.A.W. Myrin (The Myrin Institute Inc., 1970), p. 46. Many years after the school was founded, Mr. Gardner' stated his purpose this way: "I minimized the difference between a Waldorf school and other schools ... As soon as fundamental questions began to be answered plainly, wild rumors and frightened guesses quieted down.” [Ibid., p. 48.] Sadly, many of Mr. Gardner's "plain" answers were untrue.

[R. R., 2009.]

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"[Waldorf] education is essentially grounded on the recognition of the child as a spiritual being, with a varying number of incarnations behind him, who is returning at birth into the physical world ... Teachers too will know that it is their task to help the child to make use of his body, to help his soul-spiritual forces to find expression through it, rather than regarding it as their duty to cram him with information....” — Anthroposophist Stewart C. Easton, MAN AND WORLD IN THE LIGHT OF ANTHROPOSOPHY (Anthroposophic Press, 1989), pp. 388-389.

Old Saturn and Thereafter

"If you recall the teachings of Spiritual Science [i.e., Anthroposophy] on the subject of the education of the child you will know that in the first seven-year period of life, between birth and the change of teeth, man develops principally the physical body ... [T]his is really a recapitulation of what man underwent on Old Saturn ... The second of the seven-year periods from the ages of seven to fourteen...is a recapitulation of what man underwent on Old Sun ... The third seven-year period covers the years between fifteen and twenty-one. During this period man recapitulates the development of the astral body that normally belongs to the Old Moon epoch.” — Rudolf Steiner, THE MISSION OF THE FOLK SOULS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2005), p. 68.

Waldorf schooling has only a tangential connection with the real world and real knowledge about the real world. Much if not all of what happens in Waldorf schools is keyed to bizarre occult doctrines.

Allow me to try, in as few words as possible, to explain the Waldorf conception of humanity’s past. Thus far, we have evolved through three “Conditions of Consciousness” or “Planetary Stages” — i.e., major evolutionary phases — which are named for "planets" (Old Saturn, Old Sun, Old Moon). We became progressively more physical at each stage, and now on Present Earth we are about as densely physical as possible.* In the future, we will become less and less physical and more and more spiritual as we evolve through additional Conditions of Consciousness (Future Jupiter, Future Venus, Future Vulcan, and beyond).

Each Condition of Consciousness contains seven Conditions of Life, each of which contains seven Stages of Form, each of which contains seven Epochs, each of which contains seven Ages. (The terms vary from Condition to Condition, but the pattern does not.**) As we move along through these stages and sub-stages, we repeatedly recapitulate — in altered form — the stages and sub-stages we passed through previously. Cumulatively, we progress, although certainly not in a straight line. We sharpen our capacities, and develop new capacities, as we go, so that in the future we may rise to higher and higher states of perfection.

In the Present Earth Condition of Consciousness, we are now in the fourth Condition of Life, the Mineral Condition (very densely physical indeed). Like all the other Conditions of Life, the Mineral Condition contains Stages of Form ranging from Higher Spiritland to the Archetypal Stage of Higher Spiritland (a recapitulation with improvements). We are presently in the Physical Stage of Form (very very densely physical indeed indeed).

There are or will be seven Epochs or Great Epochs in this Stage of Form. So far we have passed through the Polarian, Hyperborean, Lemurian, and Atlantean Epochs. We are currently in the Post-Atlantean Epoch (i.e., the period following the sinking of Atlantis — yes, Atlantis).

Each Epoch consists of (you guessed it) seven sub-epochs. In our Post-Atlantean Epoch, these sub-epochs are called Cultural Ages or Cultural Epochs. Our current Cultural Epoch — known as the Anglo-Germanic Age, or simply as the Present  — falls between the Greco-Roman Age and the Russian Age. (Don't worry — the Russian Age will be followed by the American Age.)

Cultural Epochs are divided into fairly brief (350-year) periods, which in turn are divided into very brief (33-year) cycles. (The math doesn't quite work out, but let it go.) Each Condition and Epoch and period along the way is presided over by various gods, and during each we spin through repetitions (with improvements) of all the prior Conditions and Epochs and periods.

OK? Got it? Few Waldorf teachers will lay out much of this for the students, at least not openly. But this is what devout Waldorf teachers believe and, directly or indirectly, it informs almost all of their work. [If you’d like more information on all of this imaginary history — which Anthroposophists take for reality — see, e.g., “Matters of Form” and “Everything”. “Steiner Static” and the “The Brief Waldorf / Steiner Encyclopedia” are also, I hope, informative. To sample the teachings of a Waldorf educator who openly lays Anthroposophical occultism on his students, see "Out in the Open".]

* Anyone who becomes even more densely physical will fall into a sphere analogous to hell: the "Eighth Sphere". [See "Sphere 8".]

** Different labels may apply to some of these subdivisions in some macro-devisions. We can be a little loose in our terminology, since all of this is fantasy.

Turning Seven

“We can observe the child’s growth until the time of its second dentition around the seventh year. Far more than one generally thinks is connected with this second dentition. If we observe the soul-bodily processes in an unprejudiced way, we can see that after the second dentition the child’s whole way of thinking, its whole life of representation and feeling, in fact the whole life of the soul, undergoes a complete change.” — Rudolf Steiner, PATHS TO KNOWLEDGE OF HIGHER WORLDS (Anthroposophical Publishing Co., 1947), GA 79.

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Response:

A child’s seventh birthday is highly important in Waldorf schools. At age seven, Waldorf teachers generally believe, a child’s "etheric body" is incarnated. The child then moves from the first stage of growth (a period of seven years during which the will and the physical body predominate) into the second stage (a period of seven years during which the emotions predominate and the etheric body is developed). The Waldorf lower-school curriculum is built around this concept.*

Several problems leap out. For one, there is no such thing as an etheric body. For another, there is no objective evidence that “the child’s whole way of thinking” changes at or around the seventh birthday. And for yet another, the notion that the “second dentition” (i.e., the replacement of baby teeth by adult teeth) occurs at or around age seven is incorrect. Most adult teeth don’t arrive until about age eleven, and some don’t arrive until age twenty-one.**

Even if we extend every possible courtesy to Steiner, stipulating that by “second dentition” he meant the arrival of the first adult tooth — which on average happens between ages six and seven — our main objections remain. There is no etheric body, nor is there any reason to think that children change profoundly when the adult teeth start appearing.***

So why all the fuss at Waldorf schools about age seven? Steiner liked to group phenomena in sets of seven and twelve because he claimed that these numbers possess occult, magical significance. [See “Magic Numbers”.] Thus, Steiner built the Waldorf curriculum around the number seven. But dividing things according to occult fantasies about numbers is arbitrary and meaningless. Steiner was making things up, spinning them out of his occult imagination, with no regard for reality or truth. If he believed his teachings on such points, he was deluding himself — just as his followers delude themselves now in accepting his teachings.

The truth about the design of the Waldorf curriculum is plain. The design is truthless (or should I say toothless?). In truth, there is no truth in it.

*  The upper-school curriculum is built around the idea that a second fundamental change occurs in children at age fourteen. At that time, according to Waldorf belief, the "astral body" incarnates.

**  See, for instance, the “Permanent Tooth Eruption Chart” put out by the American Dental Association. It shows that various adult (“permanent”) teeth come in (“erupt”) at various times, from around the sixth year of life up to around the twenty-first year. [http://www.ada.org/sections/publicResources/pdfs/chart_eruption_perm.pdf] Using the data provided by this dental authority, we can see that the average date for the arrival of an adult tooth is slightly less than eleven years, which is more than half way into the Waldorf-fantasized second stage of childhood (ages seven to fourteen).

*** We have bent over too far to accommodate Steiner. Note the following: “[I] the first seven-year period of life, between birth and the change of teeth, man develops principally the physical body.” — Rudolf Steiner, THE MISSION OF THE FOLK SOULS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2005), p. 68. Here, Steiner is clearly saying that adult teeth replace baby teeth ("the change of teeth") at age seven, as if the entire process is completed at that time.

Let’s look a bit more deeply into Steiner’s dental doctrines. Steiner taught that the arrival of adult teeth marks a stage when various forces that had been needed by the physical body can be redirected to higher purposes. “After the second dentition, the human being no longer requires certain forces for the development of his physical organism which he formerly required. The forces which push out (if I may use this trivial expression) the second teeth are not merely localised in the human head, but they are forces which work in the whole body....” — Rudolf Steiner, PATHS TO KNOWLEDGE OF HIGHER WORLDS. But the forces that "push out" the adult teeth have by no means finished this work by age seven. Unfortunately for Steiner's teachings and the Waldorf curriculum [see "Curriculum"], the forces that “push out” adult teeth are still slaving away in the physical body until about age twenty-one, which is the end of the Waldorf-fantasized third stage of childhood (ages fourteen to twenty-one). In sum, Steiner’s numbers don’t add up. Or, to frame this more broadly, Steiner used little or no real information to reach conclusions that make little or no sense.

(P.S. The Waldorf conception of the third stage of childhood may seem to make more sense than the conception of the first two stages. Stage #3 corresponds, roughly, to the period beginning with puberty and ending with the attainment of adulthood. But in reality puberty comes at widely varying ages for different individuals, and the threshold of adulthood is a legal or cultural convention — different societies draw the line at different ages.)

Polarity: Teachers, Parents

At Waldorf schools, there is a “fundamental polarity between teacher and parents. ... [T]he role of the teachers [is] to take primary responsibility for the incarnation of the child ... [T]he teacher is the king or queen of their classroom.” The role of the parents is quite difference. Parents should always ask themselves “What can I do for you [i.e., the school]?” This means identifying “the concrete tasks which serve to embody the school in the community.” 

When teachers take their role to extremes, “it becomes ‘Luciferic,’ tending toward dogmatism, pride, and exclusivity.” When parents overstep their bounds, their activity “becomes ‘Ahrimanic,’ and can be characterized by attempts to control, power-plays, and manipulation.” — Waldorf educator Robert Schiappacasse, essay #1 in ADMINISTRATIVE EXPLORATIONS: Essays on Business Practices within Waldorf Schools (Association of Waldorf Schools of North America, 2000), pp. 6-8.

Schiappacasse identifies two overarching goals of Waldorf education: “Incarnating the Child” and “Incarnating the School.”* Teachers have primary responsibility for the former (the “spiritual/cultural pillar” of the school), parents have primary responsibility for the latter (the “economic pillar” — i.e., providing the money the school needs).

The "polarity" between teachers and parents means that these two groups stand at opposite poles. From these positions, they make work harmoniously together — or they may ends up as, in effect opponents. Steiner often expressed disdain for the parents of Waldorf students, and he often encouraged Waldorf teachers to supplant parents as the most important adults in the students' lives. He urged Waldorf teachers to "take over" the guidance and nurturing of their students. Ideally, he said, Waldorf teachers should (or "almost" should) take over immediately after the birth of the students. • "You will have to take over children for their education and instruction — children who will have received already (as you must remember) the education, or mis-education given them by their parents." — Rudolf Steiner, addressing Waldorf teachers, THE STUDY OF MAN (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2004), p. 16. • "[I]t might almost be preferable from a moral viewpoint if children could be taken into one's care soon after birth." — Rudolf Steiner, WALDORF EDUCATION AND ANTHROPOSOPHY, Vol. 2 (Anthroposophic Press, 1996), p. 69. [For more on the teacher-parent polarity, see, e.g., "Faculty Meetings".]

[R. R., 2011.]

“[T]he purpose of education 

is to help the individual fulfill his karma. 

The teacher is an intermediary 

and his task is to guide the incarnating individualities

 into the physical world and equip them for earthly existence, 

bearing in mind what they bring with them from the past 

and what they are likely to take with them into the future.”

 — Waldorf teacher Roy Wilkinson, 

THE SPIRITUAL BASIS OF STEINER EDUCATION 

(Rudolf Steiner Press, 1996), p. 52. 

MY LIFE AMONG THE ANTHROPOSOPHISTS, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Parts 4-6

The memoir of a former Waldorf student and teacher

SQUARE ONE, Part 1, Part 2

From the beginning, again

TROLLS?

Any here?

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