August, '19
August 30, 2019
◊ News Briefs ◊
1.
From The Weekly Times [Melbourne, Australia]:
Sunshine Coast’s most improved
NAPLAN schools revealed
[By] Geoff Egan
THE most improved primary school cohorts in Sunshine Coast [1] have been revealed following the 2019 NAPLAN release [2].
Results across the Sunshine Coast region found Year 5 students at Cooroy State School improved their NAPLAN scores more than any other cohort in the region...
For high schools, Noosa Pengari Steiner School at Doonan was the most improved [3]...
The NAPLAN test remains controversial among educators and parents with concerns it does not fully capture everything a student learns at school.
A Queensland Government response to an independent review of the test stated NAPLAN remained important to maintain school accountability....
[8/30/ 19 https://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/news/regional/sunshine-coasts-most-improved-naplan-schools-revealed/news-story/1605c88a0404f7dbdcf11824b469ac9f This article originally appeared on August 28.]
2.
From The Argus Courier [Petaluma, California,USA]:
Mold infests Petaluma’s
Live Oak School
[By] Yousef Baig
Aging buildings at Live Oak Charter School [4] are harboring a mold outbreak...
According to multiple parents...several students and at least one faculty member have been diagnosed with mold-related illnesses over the last two years...
“I don’t feel like this is a healthy place to leave my kids,” one parent said [5]...
Ecological conditions were so bad in the hand-working room that mushrooms had grown out of the window sill, and the wall beneath it had become soft. That room remains closed, according to the former handwork teacher, who has since resigned due to ongoing health issues that first showed up in December...
[E]nvironmental specialists discovered water damage and high concentrations of airborne spores throughout the Live Oak campus...
[S]ome families believe the school has only been able to bandage the situation...
The extra upfront costs for mold remediation come at a time when the Waldorf-inspired school, which serves nearly 300 students, is facing a budget shortfall.... [6]
[8/30/19 https://www.petaluma360.com/news/9967210-181/mold-infests-petalumas-live-oak This article originally appeared on August 29.]
3.
From The Island Now [Long Island, New York, USA]:
North Shore private schools
may face regulations
By Rose Weldon
Private and parochial schools across the North Shore are objecting to proposed regulations by the New York State Education Department that may require them to answer to their local public schools in matters of curriculum. [7]
The proposed regulations would require local authorities from the nearest public school district to review nonpublic schools in their area and determine if they are “at least substantially equivalent” to state standards...
The regulations come after investigations into concerns from “parents, former students and former teachers” at 44 yeshivas [8]...
Complaints alleged that students were not receiving secular education that met requirements for substantially equivalent instruction, and provided a catalyst for an investigation that led to the proposed regulations.
Nonpublic schools on the North Shore argue that the regulations go against their missions as independent schools [9]...
[Numerous schools including] the Waldorf School of Garden City...were all unavailable for comment.
[8/30/19 https://theislandnow.com/roslyn-109/north-shore-private-schools-may-face-regulations/ This article originally appeared on August 28.]
Waldorf Watch Footnotes:
[1] This is an area on the eastern coast of Australia, north of Brisbane.
[2] NAPLAN is the National Assessment Program — Literacy and Numerancy
[3] Interpreting "improvement" scores can be tricky. A school that was judged excellent in the past may remain excellent now but it probably will not get a high score for improvement (since little or no improvement was needed). Any school that shows major improvement now was necessarily less than excellent previously — and it may still be well below excellence now (e.g., improving from the equivalent of an F grade to a C grade would count as significant improvement). Academic standards at Waldorf or Steiner schools are often low, but this can sometimes be remedied by vigorous effort. The challenge for these schools is to attain academic respectability while remaining true to Rudolf Steiner's vision, which is largely at odds with conventional scholarship and science. [See "Academic Standards at Waldorf".]
[4] Live Oak is a "Waldorf-inspired" charter school. [See http://www.liveoakcharter.org.] The school's Waldorf belief system is evident in such activities as the annual "Dragon Pageant": "In Autumn a great golden knight with sword and with shield, passes over meadow and orchard and field. He’s on his way to battle ‘against darkness and strife. He is the heavenly warrior protector of life." [http://liveoakleaflet.blogspot.com/2016/09/dragon-pageant_29.html] In Anthroposophical teachings, the dragon is the arch-demon Ahriman, who is fought by the Archangel of the Sun, Michael. [See "Ahriman" and "Michael".]
[5] Easier said than done, of course, but parents who consider a school unsafe should remove their children. This is a situation that may often arise in Waldorf schools, where high percentages of the students are often unvaccinated. As a result, students in those schools are denied group immunity (often unfortunately called "herd" immunity) — kids are much more likely to contract contagious diseases there. [See, e.g., "Chickenpox in Asheville".]
[6] Health concerns arise from time to time at Waldorf schools, as do difficulties with finances — and the two matters are sometimes interrelated. A more basic issue, however, is the nature of medical practices based on the teachings of Waldorf founder Rudolf Steiner. [See "Steiner's Quackery".]
[7] Like most local news media, The Island Now focuses on its immediate community, in this case the northern shore of Long Island. But the subject is larger than that. The regulations would affect all private schools in New York State, including all Waldorf or Steiner schools in the state. (The Waldorf school closest to the North Shore is in Garden City, about halfway between the northern and southern shores of the island.)
[8] These are orthodox Jewish institutions, which offer overtly religious instruction. Waldorf or Steiner schools usually claim to be secular, but critics contend these schools subtly indoctrinate their students in the Anthroposophical faith. [See "Is Anthroposophy a Religion?", "Schools as Churches", and "Indoctrination".] The overarching issue touched on by the article in The Island Now is the New York regulation stating that private schools must provide education that at least approximately meets state standards. The proposed new regulation would empower local public schools to evaluate local private schools.
[9] State regulation of private schools is always a volatile subject. For Steiner schools in the United Kingdom, for instance, such regulation has produced a system-wide crisis. [See "The Steiner School Crisis".]
— R.R.
August 27, 2019
◊ News Briefs ◊
1.
From The New Yorker [New York, USA]:
The Message of Measles
As public-health officials confront the largest outbreak in the U.S. in decades,
they’ve been fighting as much against dangerous ideas as they have against the disease.
By Nick Paumgarten
...Elisa Sobo, a medical anthropologist at San Diego State University, has advanced the idea that saying no to vaccinations is as much an opting in as it is an opting out — “like getting a gang tattoo, slipping on a wedding ring, or binge-watching a popular streamed TV show,” she writes, in a recent paper, “Theorizing (Vaccine) Refusal.” “This kind of refusal is more about who one is and with whom one identifies than who one isn’t or whom one opposes.” You could say that many of the parents who send their children to Waldorf private schools and choose not to vaccinate them — for example, at Green Meadow, a Waldorf school whose immunization rate was so low that Rockland County officials banned unvaccinated students from attending — are declaring an allegiance to an ethos, or even bowing to peer pressure. They’re going with a different flow, even if it’s the one that says measles can be prevented by breast milk and bone broth. The Hollywood Reporter found that the rates of vaccination in some of the private schools in Santa Monica and Beverly Hills — Marianne Williamson country — are roughly the same as in Chad and South Sudan. Last year, at the Westside Waldorf School, in the Pacific Palisades, about four in ten kindergartners were fully vaccinated. At the Garden of Angels School, in Santa Monica, about half were. “We perceive each growing child as a precious cluster of unique treasure,” the school’s Web site reads. “Our Garden Ideology aspires to accurately mirror an environment where students are limited by nothing and liberated by everything.” Nothing says liberation like pertussis....
[8/27/19 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/02/the-message-of-measles This article originally appeared on August 26.]
Waldorf Watch Response:
The problematic anti-vaxx culture often found in and around Waldorf schools has received considerable attention in recent months. [See, e.g., "Health Expert: Not If but When", June 26, 2019, "Waldorf, Measles, The Times — and Demons", June 13, 2019, and "Waldorf & Measles: Seeking Context", May 30, 2019.]
The allure of the countercultural Waldorf ethos, and the peer pressure encountered within that ethos, do help account for the notoriety Waldorf schools have attained as centers of anti-scientific — indeed, anti-intellectual — belief and conduct. When a family commits itself to a Waldorf school, it often finds itself absorbed into an all-encompassing, densely demanding alternative social movement from which it may have great difficulty extricating itself. But, then again, many of these families do not wish to leave the Waldorf culture — they remain dazzled by its apparent promise. [See, e.g., "Upside" and "Glory".] This may or may not speak well of the schools. A critical interpretation is that Waldorf schools sometimes succeed in their efforts to indoctrinate newcomers. [See "Indoctrination".]
2.
From The Press and Journal [Aberdeen, et al, Scotland]:
Private school in Moray with links
to Hollywood is saved from closure
by David Mackay
A private school in Moray, with star-studded links to Hollywood, has avoided having to shut its doors after a late rescue bid.
Drumduan School in Forres was threatened with closure amid concerns about crippling debts, which left it struggling to pay staff and bills.
But families launched an online fundraising campaign in order to raise the £36,000 which was required to keep the Steiner-inspired classrooms open.
Oscar-winner Tilda Swinton became involved with the school in 2013, but resigned as a director in April this year...
Emergency talks were held by the school’s Friends, Teachers and Parents Association (FTPA) this week...
Drumduan’s FTPA was formed in May after parents and teachers discovered that the school was facing serious financial difficulties.
The fundraising campaign, spearheaded by families of pupils, raised nearly £9,400. It is understood that the money was used to help affected teachers pay rent and other bills....
[8/27/19 https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/moray/1824901/private-school-in-moray-with-links-to-hollywood-is-saved-from-closure/ This article originally appeared on August 23.]
Waldorf Watch Response:
Fundraising is a perpetual challenge for private Steiner or Waldorf schools. From time to time, one or another of these schools closes when the burden becomes unsustainable. [See "Failure".]
This is a major reason Steiner/Waldorf proponents sometime seek to have their schools accepted into public school systems as "free" or "charter" schools. Public coffers are then opened to these schools. The price exacted, however, is that state education departments may then exercise some degree of control over the schools. Remaining a pure, 100% Steiner/Waldorf institution may become impossible under these circumstances. The current crisis among Steiner schools in the United Kingdom stems, at least in part, from the opening of Steiner free schools in the UK. [See "The Steiner School Crisis".]
(An aside: The "star-studded links to Hollywood" at Drumduan School appear to have been a tad hyped. One Hollywood star once supported the school — and perhaps, quietly, she still does. Make of that what you will.)
— R.R.
August 24, 2019
SHOTS UNNECESSARY:
WALDORF PROPHYLAXIS
From the New Zealand news media company Stuff:
One in two children not fully immunised
at Christchurch's Helios medical centre
[By] Cate Broughton
It's the GP [1] for anti-vaxxers [2], where they won't get "browbeaten".
More than half of all children at one Christchurch medical centre [3] were not fully immunised in the last year.
Rates for declined vaccinations at the GP were more than 10 times higher than the average for Christchurch practices...
Across all immunisation age groups 53.8 per cent of parents at "practice 29" [4] declined a vaccination for their child in the year ending June 30.
The low rates have emerged as New Zealand experiences the worst outbreak of measles in a decade...
Helios offers a range of alternative treatments including homeopathy, mistletoe therapy and anthroposophic medicine [5]...
Several families from the Christchurch Rudolph Steiner School, in Opawa, were enrolled at Helios and the school was likely to have a higher proportion of unimmunised children than other schools, [Steiner] principal Thomas Proctor said...
Waldorf Watch Response:
Waldorf or Steiner schools almost never have official policies opposing vaccination. Yet these schools tend to have very high numbers of unvaccinated students, and a general anti-vaxx sentiment often prevails. Much of the Waldorf view of vaccination derives from the warnings Rudolf Steiner issued concerning this medical procedure. [6]
Let's step back to put matters in a broader context. According to Steiner, illness can often be prevented or cured through mental or spiritual means rather than physical interventions. So, for instance, people suffering from rickets can improve if they concentrate on abstract concepts. "[P]eople with rickets do better if they think abstractly.” — Rudolf Steiner, FROM THE CONTENT OF ESOTERIC CLASSES (transcript, Rudolf Steiner Archive), GA 266. Likewise, pneumonia can be treated by strengthening one's "astral body" [7]: “With pneumonia, the cause is always in the astral body; pneumonia can occur in no other way.” — Rudolf Steiner, THE TEMPLE LEGEND (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1997), p. 60.
In general, Steiner indicated, Anthroposophy ("spiritual science") will revive ancient healing practices such as meditation on geometric forms or other mathematical figures. The practice of Anthroposopy will be, in itself, the primary defense against illness:
"In ancient times when a person was ill it was customary to place before him all kinds of symbolic figures, triangles, and combinations of numbers. The object, besides the other value these things possessed, was to uplift him from the mere outward vision of things. If I place a triangle before me and merely look at it, that has no particular value but if on the other hand I see it as the symbol of the higher triad of man [8] it becomes a healing conception of the mind.
"Observe how the conceptions of Spiritual Science lead us to the vision of things Spiritual. We are led from what takes place on earth to what has taken place on the ancient Sun, Moon, and Saturn [9]. With physical eyes we cannot see the events of those times, nor with sensely hands can we reach up to the ancient Moon or ancient Sun; but without the aid of the external crutches of our senses we can uplift ourselves to the things which existed once upon a time; we can acquire conceptions which have an equalizing and harmonizing effect upon our whole life and likewise upon our body.
"Spiritual Science will again prove to be a great, a universal remedy, as it was formerly in the hands of the Egyptian priests [10]; at that time, however, it necessitated the suppression of the ego, as in temple-sleep [11]. The spiritual conception of the world is a curative conception." — Rudolf Steiner, UNIVERSE, EARTH AND MAN (Harry Collison, 1931), lecture 2, GA 105.
Proponents of Waldorf education — especially the true-believing Anthroposophists among them — have faith that Waldorf schooling, imbued with Anthroposophy, is itself a form of therapy, perhaps the only medicine children will need. Steiner himself promoted this faith:
"From the beginning of his work with teachers and physicians, Rudolf Steiner always stressed that educating is simultaneously healing, a subtle healing. The curriculum of the Waldorf school is therefore built exclusively on physiological aspects of learning and child development. Each subject is considered, above all, with respect to its effects of physical development ... [Steiner] develops his pedagogical starting point from those principles and interconnections of laws [12] that work throughout human life in the service of health and represent the system of forces that promote self-healing." — Anthroposophist Michaela Glöckler, EDUCATION AS PREVENTIVE MEDICINE (Rudolf Steiner College Press, 2002), pp. 15-16.
Hence, children who attend Waldorf schools may not need vaccinations or other ordinary medical treatments. Rather, they can rely on the healing forces that flow into them thanks to their enrollment in these wondrous schools.
Waldorf Watch Footnotes:
[1] I.e., a general practice — a clinic providing primary health care for patients of every age and type.
[2] I.e., opponents of vaccination.
[3] Christchurch is a city in eastern New Zealand, on South Island.
[4] New Zealand's National Immunisation Register withholds the names of the clinics it reports about; instead, it refers to the clinics by arbitrarily assigned numerical designations. Practice 29 is evidently the Helios Integrative Medical Centre, located in the Christchurch suburb of Opawa.
[5] This is medicine based on the occult teachings of Rudolf Steiner. [See "Steiner's Quackery".]
[6] See "vaccination" in The Brief Waldorf / Steiner Encyclopedia (BWSE).
[7] This is an invisible body that, Steiner taught, incarnates at about age 14. [See "Incarnation".]
[8] Steiner taught than a human being has a physical self, a soul, and a spirit. [See "threefold nature of man" in the BWSE.]
[9] According to Steiner's teachings, Old Saturn, Old Sun, and Old Moon were — in this order — three stages of cosmic evolution. [See the entries for these terms in the BWSE.]
[10] Steiner taught that Anthroposophy is the newest, best form of "spiritual science" (i.e., the objective study of the spirit realm through the use of clairvoyance), but there have been previous forms, as in ancient Egypt.
[11] "We must now sketch in a few words, and bring before your souls, the nature of temple-sleep, which was one of the remedies employed by the priests of Egypt. Anyone who had suffered loss of health in any way in those days was not treated as a rule with external remedies; there were only a few of these, and they were seldom used. Sufferers were in most cases taken to the temple and there put into a kind of sleep. It was not an ordinary sleep, but a kind of somnambulistic sleep which was so intensified that the patient became capable of having not chaotic dreams merely but of seeing orderly visions. During this sleep the patient perceived etheric forms in the spiritual world, and the wise priests understood the art of influencing these etheric pictures which passed before the sleeper; they could control and guide them." — Rudolf Steiner, UNIVERSE, EARTH AND MAN, lecture 2.
Anthroposophy is more advanced than ancient Egyptian practices, Steiner indicated. So, for instance, if ancient Egyptian medicine required "the suppression of the ego," modern Anthroposophy accentuates the ego — or the "I" — as defined by Steiner. [See "Ego".]
[12] I.e., spiritual laws and their reflections in Earthly incarnation. As described here by Glöckler, the Waldorf curriculum applies spiritual laws (discovered by spiritual science) to the development of children, focusing particularly on physical or physiological development and health.
— R.R.
August 23, 2019
THE WORLDWIDE WEB
OF AHRIMANIC HORRORS
From The Daily News [New York, USA]:
The internet is dangerous for kids:
Parents, guard your children’s
exposure to online content
By Julian Ansorge
At the Waldorf School in Silicon Valley, [electronic] devices aren’t allowed in classrooms because the administration believes technology negatively impacts children’s development. Many top executives from companies such as Google, Apple and Yahoo choose to send their kids there...
For some children, like me, too much exposure to the internet at a young age can have serious consequences, and not only because hours upon hours of screen time might harm their ability to focus or connect with people in real life. Those are real problems, but I’ve experienced another danger first-hand.
It began when I was 9 and a close friend said he had a “surprise” for me...
Much to my shock, the surprise was on his new iPod Touch. It was pornography. I saw women tied-up while men abused them, hitting and cursing. I watched what I didn’t know to call rape. In fourth grade, I had no idea what I was watching nor how to process it.
After my friend spent hours showing me this in his bedroom, I was overwhelmed. I returned to school doing what my therapist later called “spilling” — taking everything I’d heard that traumatized me, and repeating it randomly, almost uncontrollably. This behavior terrified my classmates, who couldn’t understand my odd behavior. Once a model student at my school in Manhattan, I found myself in serious trouble...
Suddenly, I was viewed as a problem child. I stopped getting invited to classmates’ houses and birthday parties.
Looking back now, I see that I was merely reacting to an ugly barrage I couldn’t process and couldn’t understand...
Parents, when you hand your child a [smart] phone, computer, iPad, Playstation, Xbox or any other device with internet capability, you are giving them an unlocked door to an uncensored world: adult chatrooms, porn, beheadings. Kids don’t know not to click; in fact, they are often drawn to see what they don’t know they can’t handle....
[8/23/19 https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-the-internet-is-dangerous-for-kids-20190822-uuip4jo3i5g7bkjkj6z2aw7rjq-story.html This item originally appeared on August 22.]
Waldorf Watch Response:
Waldorf schools have gotten a lot of positive publicity from reports that executives at high-tech companies send their children to Waldorf schools ("Many top executives...send their kids there"). But these reports are greatly exaggerated. Some top tech execs have sent their kids to Waldorf schools; the great majority have not.
In trying to comprehend the benefits and dangers of modern technology, let's set aside for a moment the sort of traumatizing images young Julian Ansorge was exposed to. Let's first consider the general effects today's technologies can have for young minds. Waldorf schools are by no means the only place where adults recognize that kids can be hurt by "hours upon hours of screen time" — time spent staring into the screens of computers, smart phones, televisions, and so on. Virtually every thinking adult nowadays understands that kids should not spend all their waking hours in virtual reality. Kids should spend a good part of each day outdoors, digging in the dirt, running around on their flesh-and-blood legs, gazing at butterflies, kicking soccer balls and belting baseballs, etc. They need real experience in the real world. We all know know this.
And, of course, no sane person believes that young children should be exposed to videos of rapes, or beheadings, or other electronically conveyed horrors. Although much (dare I say most?) of the Internet is benign and informative, there are certainly terrible sites where horrific images are presented. Such sites traffic in images that may traumatize any child who is exposed to them, especially if the exposure is prolonged and repeated. Every sane adult knows that children should be protected from the worst stuff available on the Internet, just as every sane adult knows that children should be protected from the worst stuff that threatens the unwary in real life.
This brings us back to the question of Waldorf schools. In our revulsion from the worst effects that today's technologies may produce, should we flee to anti-tech bastions such as Waldorf?
To seek an answer — to evaluate whether Waldorf schools possess special virtues vis-a-vis modern technology — we should dig a bit into Waldorf/Anthroposophical literature. When we do this, huge warning flags quickly pop up. The Waldorf culture opposes modernity in almost all of its manifestations, not just in its high-tech gadgetry. And basic to the Waldorf fear of the modern world is the Waldorf fear of demons.
Here are a few quotations we should bear in mind:
◊ “When we build steam-engines [which were high-tech devices in Steiner's day], we provide the opportunity for the incarnation of demons ... In the steam-engine, Ahrimanic demons are actually brought to the point of physical embodiment.” — Rudolf Steiner, “The Relation of Man to the Hierarchies” (ANTHROPOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT, Vol. V, Nos. 14-15, 1928). Ahriman is a terrible arch-demon, according to Steiner. "Ahrimanic demons" are Ahriman's terrible demonic underlings. [See "Ahriman".]
◊ "[W]hat has been said here about the steam engine applies in a much greater degree to the technology of our time ... [T]elevision, for example. The result is that the demon magic spoken of by Rudolf Steiner is spreading more and more intensively on all sides ... It is very necessary that anyone who aspires towards the spiritual should realise clearly how the most varied opportunities for a virtual incarnation of elemental beings and demons are constantly on the increase." — Anthroposophist Georg Unger, “On ‘Mechanical Occultism’” (Mitteilungen aus der Anthroposophischen Arbeit in Deutschland nos. 68–69, 1964). Elemental beings are invisible creatures that, Steiner taught, are present in the forces of nature or that haunt us when we are immersed in physical existence. [See "Neutered Nature".]
◊ “The exploitation of electric forces — for example in information and computing technologies — spreads evil over the Earth in an immense spider's web. And fallen spirits of darkness [i.e., demons]...are active in this web.” — Anthroposophist Richard Seddon, THE END OF THE MILLENNIUM AND BEYOND (Temple Lodge Publishing, 1996), p. 24.
◊ "[T]he whole computer and Internet industry is today the most effective way to prepare for the imminent incarnation of Ahriman or at least to allow his earthly task to run as smoothly as possible for him. The net of ahrimanic spider beings developing out of the internet around the earth stands right from the beginning in a direct relationship to Ahriman appearing in a physical body and will serve him particularly effectively and offer him extremely favourable potential to work." — Anthroposophist Sergei O. Prokofieff, "The Being of the Internet", e.g. Pacifica Journal, 2006.
If you agree that demons pose a real danger for humanity, then perhaps you and your children will find Waldorf schools to be just what you are looking for. But if not — if you think Anthroposophists are fantasizing when they speak of demons, Ahriman, monstrous spider beings, and the like — you almost certainly should look for a different kind of school.
— R.R.
August 22, 2019
OCCULT FOUNDATIONS
OF THE WALDORF MOVEMENT
From the group blog Boing Boing:
The world's largest occult library
has a public online archive
Amsterdam's Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica (AKA "The Ritman Library") houses more ths 25,000 occult texts, covering "Hermetics, Rosicrucians, Theosophy, alchemy, mysticism, Gnosis and Western Esotericism, Sufism, Kabbalah, Anthroposophy, Catharism, Freemasonry, Manichaeism, Judaica, the Grail, Esotericism, and comparative religion."
The library has begun to scan and post its core collection to an online archive called The Hermetically Open Archive...
Though the scans are all in the public domain, the library uses Javascript tricks to try to block scraping...
Haute Macabre has assembled a kind of highlight reel of the collection, which has some gorgeous illustrated texts in it.
[8/22/19 https://boingboing.net/2019/08/21/gnostic-gnowledge.html]
Waldorf Watch Response:
Many people may be surprised to learn that the ideology at the base of Waldorf education — Anthroposophy — is counted among recognized forms of occultism. But, indeed, Waldorf founder Rudolf Steiner, the father of Anthroposophy, often referred to his own work as "occult." [See "Occultism".] He meant that his teachings reveal spiritual knowledge that otherwise would be hidden or secret.
Steiner's most important book, laying out his key doctrines, is titled OCCULT SCIENCE - AN OUTLINE or, in other editions, AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE. [For a primer on this book, see "Everything".] The "occult science" he meant consisted essentially of his own supernatural teachings — Anthroposophy. He also tagged Anthroposophy as a "spiritual science" — and, in other contexts, he sometimes spoke of "mystery science." [See the entries for these terms in The Brief Waldorf / Steiner Encyclopedia.]
Readers who want to delve into the occult underpinnings of Waldorf education might consult THE ESOTERIC BACKGROUND OF WALDORF EDUCATION, by Waldorf teacher-trained René Querido (Rudolf Steiner College Press, 1995), and THE SPIRITUAL BASIS OF STEINER EDUCATION, by Waldorf teacher Roy Wilkinson (Sophia Books, Rudolf Steiner Press, 1996).
For an online archive devoted specifically to Rudolf Steiner's teachings, you might visit The Rudolf Steiner Archive and eLib.
— R.R.
August 17, 2019
FLATS GOING UP ON SITE
OF FORMER STEINER SCHOOL
As a general trend, the Waldorf movement has been growing. Overall, from year to year, the total number of Waldorf schools in the world has been inching upward.
The trend has seemed inexorable. But within the trend, there is considerable churning. New schools open, but some of them fail. Meanwhile other, older schools also shut down, once in a while, here or there. [See, e.g., "Failure" and "The Seiner School Crisis".] Sometimes these closures reflect systemic conditions within the Waldorf movement, problems that can be found in many Waldorf or Steiner schools. In other cases, a Waldorf/Steiner school may close due to unique misfortunes, chance events that seem to carry few if any larger lessons.
The following is from The Evening Times [Glasgow, Scotland]:
Housing development begins on
fire-hit Steiner school in Glasgow's Yorkhill
By Niall Christie
Work has begun on a development which will see 36 flats built on the site of a West End school [the Glasgow Steiner School] destroyed by a fire more than five years ago...
When the fire hit the school in March 2013, dozens of children and staff were evacuated as flames tore through the school.
The fire broke out during morning break and led to a tower on the roof collapsing into the building...
In total, around 85 students and staff were displaced as a result.
The [housing] development comes despite attempts by campaigners for the city's Steiner School to rebuild the school...
The school's former manager, Kathryn Turner, told the Evening Times in 2013: "...[W]e are hoping to rebuild, as the external walls are structurally sound and there is no reason to demolish them."
However, a statement of closure was posted in 2017 regarding the immediate closure of the school...
[A] community of those who supported the former school continue to hold sessions promoting the idealogy [sic....
[8/17/2019 https://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/17842249.housing-development-begins-fire-hit-steiner-school-glasgows-yorkhill/ This article originally appeared on August 16.
It is probable that supporters of Steiner education will continue attempting to reopen the Glasgow Steiner School or create a new Steiner school to replace it. The ideology of Waldorf/Steiner education is Anthroposophy, the religion initiated by Rudolf Steiner. [See "Is Anthroposophy a Religion?"] Convinced that they are on a mission of cosmic importance, Steiner's followers are generally tireless in attempting to go over or around obstacles that might otherwise block their path.
The chief obstacle in this instance seems to be the inability to raise sufficient funds to rebuild — which may, in turn, indicate limited interest in Waldorf/Steiner education in the larger Glasgow community. This is a problem Steiner supporters often confront. Their general response is to foster small Anthroposophical enterprises, hoping to expand them gradually in future years. Thus, Waldorf/Steiner schools often begin (or begin again) as tiny operations, with just a handful of students and very few teachers (perhaps just one or two). Typically, a new school may start out as a kindergarten, aiming to add progressively higher grades — and hire additional faculty — as the first batch of students ages. Meanwhile, vigorous student-recruitment and fundraising efforts are usually undertaken, continuing virtually without cessation, year after year. This may be the narrative that will be repeated now in Glasgow.
— R.R.
August 13, 2019
◊ News Briefs ◊
1.
From iBerkshire.com [Massachusetts, USA]:
Berkshires Beat
The Berkshire Waldorf School (formerly known as The Great Barrington Rudolf Steiner School) is starting a new early childhood two-day program for children ages 2 1/2 to 3 1/2. The new program, starting on Sept. 9, will be held on Thursdays and Fridays through the school year. Located in the Rose Room nursery at the Betty Szold Krainis Early Childhood Building, this gentle first introduction to school includes artistic activities, singing, music and movement, wholesome snacks which the children help to prepare, and visits to the chickens and cows....
[8/13/2019 https://www.iberkshires.com/story/60636/Berkshires-Beat-The-Clark-Jacob-s-Pillow-Team-Up-for-Special-Dance-Performance.html This item originally appeared on August 12.]
2.
From The Northern Star [New South Wales, Australia]:
Most Expensive Private Schools
Might Surprise Some
...July's Edstart school fee report revealed that the majority of the most expensive private schools in the region had increased their fees above the current inflation [rate]...
Shearwater Steiner School...came in as the dearest [most expensive] school in the region at $8300 per Year 12 student...
Cape Byron Rudolf Steiner School...was second with a total of $7476 [per student]...
[8/13/2019 https://www.pressreader.com This item originally appeared on August 10.]
3.
From The Texas Tribune [Texas, USA]:
Texas vaccine exemption rates:
Look up your district or private school
Health officials are watching pockets of Texas closely because of the number of parents requesting exemptions under Texas’s broad vaccine exemption law. Texas is one of 16 states that allow parents to bypass vaccine requirements for enrolling their kids in school by claiming a conscientious exemption...
...Some smaller private schools...have exemption rates that are significantly higher than those of other schools. The Austin Waldorf School had the highest vaccine exemption rate for the 2018-19 school year, at 52.9%....
[8/13/2019 https://www.texastribune.org/2019/08/13/texas-vaccine-exemption-rates-look-up-your-school-1565297848/]
4.
From Heavy.com [New York, USA]:
Philip Manshaus:
5 Fast Facts You Need to Know
Philip Manshaus has been identified as the suspect in a terror attack on a mosque in Baerum, Norway, near Oslo...
The 21-year-old Manshaus posted [racist messages] on an anonymous online message board ... Manshaus tried to inspire others to continue the “race war” ... Police said Manshaus had previously shared “far-right” and “anti-immigrant” views.
Philip Manshaus attended Oslo Waldorf School...
Police said Manshaus does not have a “criminal background”....
[8/13/2019 https://heavy.com/news/2019/08/philip-manshaus/ This article was updated on August 12.]
5.
From The Daily Sentinel [Colorado, USA]:
Juniper Ridge starting year
in new facility
Juniper Ridge Community School's new campus is almost ready for students.
The school's new location...includes a 17,000-square-foot main building for offices, a community room, art room and three kindergarten classrooms. The school also moved seven classroom modulars from its previous location...
"We were out of space where we were at," [a school spokesperson] said...
The new Juniper Ridge campus will also allow for a bigger school garden and outdoor exploration, both of which school leaders said are fundamental to the Juniper Ridge's Waldorf education philosophy....
[8/13/2019 https://www.gjsentinel.com/news/western_colorado/juniper-ridge-starting-year-in-new-facility/article_0b2c4b9e-bcbe-11e9-8214-20677ce06c14.html This item originally appeared on August 12.]
August 9, 2019
"NEW" STEINER SCHOOL
OFF ON WRONG FOOT
As one of the many Steiner schools in the United Kingdom found to have serious deficiencies, Rudolf Steiner School Kings Langley (RSSKL) was ordered to close. [1] Supporters of the school reluctantly complied with the closure decree, but they also set to work looking for ways to revive the school in some slightly modified form (the slighter and fewer the modifications the better). The result is Langley Hill Independent School, which is scheduled to open soon on the same site as RSSKL, with much the same curriculum, and many of the same teachers. [2]
But there is a glaring problem. The official inspection service that brought down RSSKL — the government's Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) — has reported that Langley Hill seems set to repeat the mistakes committed by RSSKL. [3]
The following is from The Watford Observer [Hertfordshire, England]:
Langley Hill Independent School
may not be free of failings of previous
Kings Langley Rudolf Steiner School
By Daisy Smith
A new private school is unlikely to meet all standards when it opens in September, Ofsted has said.
Langley Hill Independent School will open in place of the former Rudolf Steiner School in Kings Langley.
The troubled school closed earlier this year after Ofsted inspections in November 2018 and December 2016 rated it inadequate [4] and pointed to leadership and student safeguarding issues [5].
Langley Hill Independent School will be a new Waldorf-inspired school [6]...
An Ofsted inspection in May found the new school is “unlikely to meet all the independent school standards [7] when it opens”.
It will retain around half of the former Rudolf Steiner School employees. But Ofsted inspectors said the school had not considered how staff from the former school will be well supported and trained [8]...
The report also found it was not clear how teaching will be monitored and supported by senior leaders [9]...
Ofsted inspectors said they thought the welfare, health and safety standard of pupils is unlikely to be met [10].
Despite the shortcomings, inspectors said the new school has a clear vision [11] and has created policies about how it intends to support pupils’ development...
Langley Hill Independent School had been contacted for comment. But no response was received at the time of publication.
[8/9/2019 https://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/news/17824915.new-langley-hill-independent-school-may-not-meet-standards-ofsted-says/ This article originally appeared on August 8.]
Waldorf Watch Footnotes:
[1] See "RSSKL".
[2] See "Langley Hill".
[3] For an overview of problems found during official inspections of UK Steiner schools, including RSSKL, see "The Steiner School Crisis".
[4] "Inadequate" (equivalent to a grade of F) is the lowest rating Ofsted issues — it indicates that a school is seriously deficient.
[5] Poor leadership and failure to adequate protect students have been prominent findings in many Ofsted inspections of Steiner schools. Poor teaching has also often been cited.
[6] The term "Waldorf-inspired school" is somewhat amorphous. It may be applied to a school that adopts a few Waldorf pedagogical methods without adopting the underlying mystical Waldorf worldview, Anthroposophy. [See "Anthroposophy" in The Brief Waldorf / Steiner Encyclopedia.] But the term "Waldorf-inspired" may also be applied to a school that seeks to become, sooner or later, a full-bore Waldorf/Steiner institution, wedded to Anthroposophy.
[7] Independent school standards published in draft form by the UK's Department for Education in 2018 include
1. Quality of education
2. Spiritual, moral, social, and cultural development of students
3. Welfare, health, and safety of students
4. Suitability of staff, supply staff, and proprietors
5. Premises of, and accommodation at, schools
6. Provision of information [to parents, pupils, applicants, agencies, etc.]
7. Manner in which complaints are handled
8. Quality of leadership and management of schools
[See "The independent school standards: advice for independent schools" https://consult.education.gov.uk/school-frameworks/operating-the-independent-school-regulatory-system/supporting_documents/180214%20%20ISSAdvice%20v13.0draftforCS.pdf.]
Ofsted seems particularly concerned that Langley Hill, like RSSKL, may fail to meet the first, third, fourth, and eighth of these standards (quality of education, safeguarding, suitability of staff, and management). Supporters of Waldorf/Steiner schools would likely argue that Langley Hill will be particular strong in meeting the second standard (spiritual, moral, etc., development of students). Critics, however, would likely argue that the school could be particularly censurable in this area, if the school effectively leads students toward embracing Anthroposophy.
[8] If Langley Hill is to be different in any significant way from RSSKL, teachers held over from RSSKL will presumably need to be retrained at least to some extent. Ofsted indicates, however, that no provisions seem to have been made for such retraining.
[9] This point covers both the management of the school and the quality of teaching the school will provide.
[10] This is the issue of safeguarding, which has been prominent in the inspections of Steiner schools and in the media accounts that have resulted. Here Ofsted indicates it doubts that Langley Hill is making adequate efforts to protects its students.
[11] Steiner or Waldorf schools usually have a clear vision, derived from the purposes and educational practices originally propounded by Rudolf Steiner. [See, e.g., "Waldorf's Spiritual Agenda".] The underlying question about Langley Hill is whether its purposes and practices will diverge to any significant degree from Steiner tradition. (I.e., the question is whether Langley Hill will be a thoroughgoing Waldorf/Steiner school like RSSKL, or whether it will be merely "Waldorf-inspired.")
— R.R.
August 8, 2019
CHILD WELFARE AND WALDORF:
DANGERS OF CONTAGION
Waldorf schools continue to make news as centers of anti-vaccination belief and behavior. The schools are thus potentially dangerous places, institutions where contagious diseases are likely to break out and spread.
The following is from EdSource [California, USA]:
California Charter School
Vaccination Rate Dips to 57%
California charter, private schools report lower
vaccination rates than traditional public schools
By Diana Lambert and Daniel J. Willis
California’s charter and private schools dramatically lag traditional public schools in the percentage of students vaccinated for contagious diseases [1].
Last year, 78 percent of traditional public schools reported that its students had all required vaccinations necessary to protect the community, while only 68 percent of private schools and 57 percent of charter schools met that goal, an EdSource analysis of California Department of Public Health data reveals.
Ninety-five percent of children at a school must be immunized to prevent transmission of disease in a community, according to the state Department of Public Health [2]...
Under state law, children must be immunized against 10 serious communicable diseases if they want to attend public or private schools and child care centers. Studies have linked clusters of unvaccinated children to outbreaks of measles, pertussis and chickenpox...
Schools with vaccination rates of less than 50 percent are largely charter schools in Sutter, Placer and Nevada counties in Northern California...
Most of the 63 schools with less than 50 percent of students vaccinated were charter and private schools: 47 were charters, 10 were private and six were traditional public schools. The private schools include five Waldorf schools...
Among all schools [having large numbers of unvaccinated students], there are 20 with Waldorf in their name [3]: five had vaccination rates under 50 percent and 11 had vaccination rates between 51 and 75 percent. Waldorf schools are usually independent private schools, but some, often called Waldorf-inspired schools, are public [4]...
Sebastopol Independent Charter, a K-8 school in Sonoma County with 293 students, had one of the lowest vaccination rates in the state for incoming kindergartners in 2018-19. Nearly 57 percent of the 44 incoming kindergartners at the public Waldorf school did not have all their required vaccinations. That’s an improvement over 2010-11 when the non-vaccinated rate was 88 percent [5].
At the same time, the school’s medical exemptions are up. No child at the school had a medical exemption in 2013, but a quarter of the school had exemptions by 2016 and nearly half by 2018 [6]....
[8/8/2019 https://edsource.org/2019/california-charter-private-schools-report-lower-vaccination-rates-than-public-schools/615871 This article originally appeared on August 7.]
Waldorf Watch Footnotes:
[1] For readers unfamiliar with American educational terminology: Traditional American public schools are funded by taxpayers, they follow standard state-approved curricula, and they are open to all students in particular geographic areas. Private schools are self-funded, they have their own curricula, and they usually have selective admissions policies. Charter schools fall between: They operate much private schools do, but they receive state funding, and they are generally open to most students in their surrounding communities. (In the UK, these institutions would be called free schools.)
[2] This level of vaccination should protect almost everyone in the school, including those who have not been vaccinated. When the vaccination rate falls below 95%, contagions are far more likely to spread and they may affect even individuals who have received vaccinations.
[3] Not all Waldorf school include "Waldorf" in their names. (For example, one of the oldest Waldorf schools in the USA is the Rudolf Steiner School in New York City; "Waldorf" is not part of this school's name.) Thus, the total number of Waldorf schools in California with low vaccination rates may be higher than the EdSource study reveals.
[4] "Public" Waldorf schools are Waldorf charter schools or magnet schools. (Magnet schools are public schools that offer special programs meant to attract a diverse group of students who share particular interests or talents.) "Waldorf-inspired" schools are generally schools that emulate Waldorf education to some degree; in many cases, the backers of these schools hope to make the schools full-fledged Waldorf institutions eventually.
[5] Many Waldorf schools are responding — not always promptly or willingly — to governmental requirements for the vaccination of children. Nonetheless the percentage of unvaccinated students in Waldorf schools still tends to be high.
[6] Medical exemptions are meant to excuse students from vaccination requirements if there is a sound medical reason for such exemption. But critics contend that too often such exemptions are claimed or granted without a valid medical justification.
— R.R.
August 3, 2019
WORLDWIDE WALDORF
CRITICS AND QUESTIONERS
Former Waldorf teacher Grégoire Perra hosts the website La Vérité sur les écoles Steiner-Waldorf {The Truth About Steiner-Waldorf Schools}, where he presents his informed critiques of Waldorf education and its underlying ideology, Anthroposophy.
At his site, Perra has now posted a list of websites posted by Waldorf critics in many lands. The list was prepared by former Waldorf parent Margaret Sachs (she once enrolled her children in a Waldorf school):
Those who criticize Anthroposophy
and Steiner-Waldorf schools
all around the world
A contribution from Margaret Sachs
[Ms. Sachs writes:] Grégoire Perra is not an isolated critic of Waldorf schools. Here are some websites and blogs dedicated exclusively to the criticism of anthroposophy and Waldorf schools (in alphabetical order):
Anthroposophical Behaviour - bringing forward Waldorf/Steiner issues (English)
Anthroposophie.blog (German, with instant automatic translation into 105 languages)
CHASE News and Views (English)
Delirio Waldorf (Spanish); English, German, Dutch)
Freebird: What Is Anthroposophy (Spanish, French, English, Italian, German)
Metodo Steiner Waldorf, una pedogogia esoterica (Italian)
Nachrichten aus der Welt der Anthroposophie (German)
Promise Hollow Waldorf School (English)
Rudolf Waldorf Answers on the philosophy and practice of Waldorf Education (English)
Steiner's Mirror (English)
Steinerkritik (Danish)
Steinerkritikkk (Norwegian)
Stop Publicly Funding Steiner (English)
Stop Steiner in York (English)
The ethereal kiosk (English, Swedish, German)
The Steinermentary Project (English)
The Waldorf Review (English)
Titirangi Rudolf Steiner Messenger (English)
UK Anthroposophy (English)
Waldorf - Steiner Watch (English) [expired or restricted?]
Waldorf Awareness (English)
Waldorf Critics (English)*
Waldorf Education - One Family's Story (English)
Waldorf Straight Talk (English)
Waldorf Watch (English)*
WaldorfBlog (German)
* Waldorf Critics and Waldorf Watch are perhaps the most complete.
Other blogs and websites have published critical articles about Waldorf schools. Former Waldorf students, parents and teachers shared their negative experiences in online discussion forums. Newspapers in Europe and the United States have published articles on abuses, security issues and other problems in anthroposophic institutions.
[8/3/2019 "Tout ceux qui dénoncent l’Anthroposophie et les écoles Steiner-Waldorf à travers le monde", La Vérité sur les écoles Steiner-Waldorf. The list was orginally posted on August 2. Translated from French with www.DeepL.com/Translator. For more of Margaret Sachs' work, see, e.g., "Our Experience".]