Oct. 16-30, '19
October 23, 2019
CHANGED STEINER SCHOOLS —
NO LONGER STEINER AT ALL?
The crisis among Steiner schools in the United Kingdom (UK) is apparently deepening [1].
Three failing Steiner schools in the UK had turned to the Avanti Schools Trust [2] for rescue. The schools hoped Avanti would allow them to continue operating much as they had before, using a Steiner curriculum and Steiner methods [3].
But now Avanti has revealed that it intends to change these schools to such an extent that they may no longer be genuine Steiner institutions [4].
Here are excerpts from a new report in Devon Live [Devonshire, UK]:
Exeter is losing its only Steiner school
The trust is also changing the names of the schools to remove any reference to Steiner, and is reviewing a previous suggestion that the new names carry the tagline 'inspired by Waldorf principles'
By Anita Merritt
Exeter’s Steiner school [5], which had to be shut down for a week a year ago after serious failings were found by inspectors, will no longer be run with a Steiner ethos.
In June it was announced Avanti Schools Trust (AST) was taking over three state Steiner academies in the south west – Exeter, Bristol and Frome [6] – after all three were placed in special measures [7] by Ofsted [8].
At the time, Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship [9], the umbrella body for Steiner schools, said the schools would remain Steiner under the new trust, and “carry forward our philosophy of Waldorf education, which sits at the heart of our ethos”.
However, with the transfer due to be completed in the coming weeks, Avanti has insisted it never intended to keep the schools Steiner, according to Schools Week [10]...
Avanti is running a curriculum review to determine what influence, if any, the Waldorf principles [will continue to have at these schools]...
The trust is also changing the names of the schools to remove any reference to Steiner...
Exeter's 442-pupil Steiner school was shut down for more than a week following a visit from inspectors in October 2018 who discovered a catalogue of failings at the school including leadership being 'dysfunctional at every level' [11]...
[The school's] Ofsted inspection last October highlighted serious inadequacies in leadership, quality of teaching and safeguarding [12]...
A spokesperson for Avanti told Schools Week: “We have made it clear from the beginning, they will first and foremost be Avanti schools. This is not Avanti joining the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship, this is Steiner schools joining Avanti.”
Avanti is also facing complaints from parents and pupils about plans to change the age range of two of the schools from all-through [13] next year.
More than 100 parents and pupils held a protest outside Department for Education offices in Bristol yesterday over proposals to make Steiner Academy Bristol a primary school and Steiner Academy Frome a...middle school [14]. Both currently teach pupils up to age 16.
The [Avanti] spokesperson said Avanti was having to make the change due to concerns about low pupil numbers, a lack of need for places [15] and concerns the [previous] entry model was not “financially sustainable”.
Avanti also said an agreement that exempts all key stage 1 pupils [16] from testing at Steiner schools [17] will no longer be in place once they join the trust....
[10/23/2019 ]https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/exeter-losing-only-steiner-school-3457456
Waldorf Watch Footnotes:
[1] See "The Steiner School Crisis".
[2] Avanti is a multi-academy trust, an educational organization that runs multiple schools under a single board of trustees. [See .] https://avanti.org.ukUntil now, Avanti has exclusively run Hindu schools in the UK.
e ""[3] For background, seThe Waldorf Curriculum and "".Methods
[4] If Avanti changes the schools so completely that they are no longer real Steiner schools, then the three schools would have to be added to the list of Steiner/Waldorf failures — Steiner or Waldorf schools that were unable to fulfill their original vision. [For other instances, see "".]Failure
[5] This is Steiner Academy Exeter. [See .] The academy is a Steiner "free school" — comparable to a Steiner charter school in the USA.https://steineracademyexeter.org.uk
Exeter is a city in the county of Devonshire (also called Devon), in southwestern England.
See ""[6] Inadequate: Bristol, Frome, &...
[7] "Special measures" are emergency procedures implemented with the goal of quickly improving a subpar school.
[8] See .https://www.steinerwaldorf.org
[9] Ofsted is the UK government's Office for Standards in Education. [See .] https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofstedThe inspectors who found problems in the three Steiner schools work for Ofsted.
[10] See "Saving Themselves by Losing Themselves?", .October 22, 2019
[11] See, e.g., "Devastating Inspection Report on U.K. Steiner Academy - Part 2", .November 18, 2018
"".][12] "Safeguarding," in the context of school operations, consists of provisions to ensure the safety of students. Ofsted has faulted several Steiner schools for inadequate safeguarding. [See, again, The Steiner School Crisis
[13] I.e., a school offering classes for students of all age levels prior to college. In the USA, these are often called K-12 schools (schools spanning kindergarten through 12th grade).
[14] I.e., the Steiner Academies in Bristol and Frome would both be partially shut down. Steiner Academy Bristol would shut down its classes above the primary level, and Steiner Academy Frome would shut down its classes below and above the middle-school level.
[15] I.e., Steiner Academy Exeter currently offers classes at levels for which there is little if any demand.
[16] In the UK, these are generally students in the 1st and 2nd grades — kids between the ages of 5 and 7.
[17] For esoteric reasons, Steiner schools generally postpone instruction in reading, writing, and basic math until children are about 7 years old. [See "". The schools are waiting for the kids' "etheric bodies" to incarnate. See "".] For this reason, Steiner schools seek exemption from requirements to test students on these subjects until after stage 1.Most SignificantIncarnation
This issue bears on the general question of academic standards at Steiner or Waldorf schools. Historically, these standards have been low. [See "".]Academic Standards at Waldorf
— R.R.
October 30, 2019
MAGIC, MUSIC, MULTI-SENSES,
AND ST. MARTIN — AT WALDORF
To understand Waldorf education, it is helpful to note the sorts of events scheduled within the Waldorf movement. Here are some of the upcoming events announced at the website of the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America [1]:
Nov 2, 2019
The Waldorf Institute of Southern California [1] presents:
Mood of the Fifth Workshop
with Andrea Pronto...
Let's explore the healing and dreamlike quality of the mood of the musical interval of the fifth [2]!
Rudolf Steiner indicated that the young child mostly still lives in this musical mood [3].
We will sing and learn to play the kinderharp and the pentatonic flute...
November 2nd, 2019
8:15 am-5:15 pm
[Music Presentation] at
Highland Hall Waldorf School [4]...
Andrea is the longtime music teacher for all grades at the Live Oak Waldorf School [5]....
[http://www.waldorfteaching.org/events_losangeles.shtml]
Nov 8, 2019
Addressing Sensory Development
in the School-Age Child
Sunbridge Institute [6] - Chestnut Ridge, NY
Annual Teachers Conference
Friday, November 8: 7pm-8:30pm...
Saturday, November 9: 9am-5:30pm
A conference for class and subject teachers [7] and anyone interested in school-age children and Waldorf Education, with keynote speaker Adam Blanning, MD...
Through the guidance of leading anthroposophical physician [8] and Waldorf school consultant Adam Blanning, MD, our conference takes a close look at the school-age child through the lens of the twelve senses [9] — understood by Rudolf Steiner to be the entryways through which each individual can relate to and make sense of the world around them — so we may learn how to better understand and serve the children in our care today.
[https://www.waldorfeducation.org/news-resources/events-calendar]
Nov 11, 2019
Martinmas
[Sic: This is the entire listing. https://www.waldorfeducation.org/news-resources/events-calendar] [10]
Waldorf Watch Footnotes:
[1] "The Association of Waldorf Schools of North America (AWSNA) is a nonprofit membership organization of independent Waldorf schools and institutes in Canada, the United States, and Mexico ... Our vision is to strengthen and nurture Waldorf education and to advance Waldorf principles worldwide." [https://www.waldorfeducation.org/awsna]
[2] "The Waldorf Institute of Southern California, or WISC, is a teacher education program that prepares people to become teachers in Waldorf schools, or to bring elements of Waldorf education into other educational settings." [https://www.waldorfteaching.org/waldorf_institute_who_we_are.shtml]
[3] In music, a "fifth" is an interval of five sequential notes in a diatonic scale.
Rudolf Steiner taught that we must grasp the inner essence of music, including fifths, if we are to understand the astral body — the second of three invisible bodies that, he said, incarnate during childhood. [See "Incarnation".]
"It does no good to approach the astral body with what we understand as the laws of natural science. We must approach it with what we have acquired as an inner understanding of music ... When we come to the fifth interval, we experience [our feeling life] at the surface, on our boundary ... With the fifth we are passing beyond ourselves ... This is the work of the astral body — the musician in every human being — which echoes the music of the cosmos." — Rudolf Steiner, THE ROOTS OF EDUCATION - Foundations of Waldorf Education XIX (Anthroposophic Press, 1997), pp. 42-43.
Re. the "music of the cosmos," see "music of the spheres" in The Brief Waldorf / Steiner Encyclopedia.
Steiner taught that young children is arrive on Earth carrying memories of, and connections to, the spirit realm. [See "Thinking Cap".] He said young children have a dreamlike consciousness that is comparable to music — it is attuned to cosmic harmonies. [For the Waldorf attitude toward music and other arts, see "Magical Arts".]
[4] Highland Hall is a K-12 Waldorf school in Northridge, California [https://www.highlandhall.org].
[5] Live Oak is a K-8 Waldorf school in Meadow Vista, California [https://www.liveoakwaldorf.org].
[6] "Sunbridge Institute...offers world-renowned Waldorf teacher education programs ... The teachings of Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Waldorf Education, are at the heart of the Sunbridge mission...." [https://www.sunbridge.edu]
[7] In Waldorf education, a "class teacher" guides a group of students for several years, such as from first grade through fifth, teaching most of the subjects studied during that time. "Subject teachers" are specialists who teach specific subjects when class teachers briefly step aside.
[8] For an introduction to Anthroposophical medicine, see "Steiner's Quackery". Such medicine is often practiced in Waldorf schools and their communities.
[9] Steiner taught that human beings have 12 senses, each of which is associated with one sign of the zodiac. [See "What We're Made Of" and "Waldorf Astrology".]
[10] Waldorf schools almost always deny that they are religious institutions, yet a great many religious observances occur within Waldorf walls.
Martinmas is the mass of Saint Martin of Tours, a patron saint of France. He is revered for receiving a vision of Christ after giving his cloak to a beggar; thereafter, he was baptized.
"St Martin [i.e., Martinmas] - festival on 11 November in honour of St Martin [1] ... In many Waldorf schools this festival involves making lanterns ... [T]he children go out into the street or a park, processing [sic] with their lanterns and singing St Martin songs ... As Jesus is born at Christmas, [similarly the] inner light shines out from each individual [symbolized by the lanterns]." — Waldorf teacher Henk van Oort, ANTHROPOSOPHY A-Z (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2011), pp. 104-105.
— R.R.
October 27, 2019
A STEINER SCHOOL SHINES -
SO SAYS "PROGRESS 8"
Waldorf schools have often had low academic standards [1]. But there are occasional exceptions [2]. Today's news brings word of a Waldorf or Steiner school in the United Kingdom (UK) that evidently is bucking the trend.
From The Hereford Times [Hereford, England]:
Herefordshire's best performing
secondary schools revealed
The Steiner Academy Hereford is the best secondary school in Herefordshire, the Government's latest league tables show [3].
The school achieved a strong score in the Progress 8 measure [4], used to assess how much pupils have improved during their time at the school, for the 2018-19 academic year.
It retains its title as the area's highest-ranking school...
The Steiner Academy Hereford is a sponsored academy [5] ...
It has 332 registered pupils...
Under Progress 8, pupils are measured across their scores in eight GCSEs [6], including core subjects (English, maths and sciences), and their best scores in other, chosen subjects...
In The Steiner Academy Hereford, 60% of pupils hit the expected target, grade 4 to 9, in English and maths. Overall, 24% hit strong grades of 5 or above in both subjects [7].
As a result, the school achieved a Progress 8 score of 0.84 [8] – Herefordshire's highest....
[10/27/2019 https://www.herefordtimes.com/news/17995745.herefordshires-best-performing-secondary-schools-revealed/.]
Waldorf Watch Response:
The low academic standards typical of Waldorf/Steiner schools have multiple, interrelated causes. Waldorf founder Rudolf Steiner disparaged the brain and brainwork [9]. He was, in addition, highly critical of modern science and, indeed, modern scholarship — which generally produce information that is incompatible with his occult preachments [10].
Taking their cue from Steiner, Waldorf schools generally downplay academics, placing their focus elsewhere [11]. While not entirely devaluing brainwork or the head, Waldorf schools famously claim to offer a holistic form of education that values the hands and heart at least as much as the head [12].
Waldorf education is often criticized — and sometimes praised — because it postpones the beginning of academic instruction until children reach the age of seven or so [13]. As with many other things in Waldorf pedagogy, the reason for this postponement is esoteric: Steiner taught that children aren't ready for academic instruction until their "etheric bodies" incarnate [14].
Children who transfer out of Steiner/Waldorf school in the early grades are often found to be, in their educational attainments, years behind students who attended others types of schools [15]. Waldorf proponents claim that Waldorf students catch up eventually, and they say that Waldorf schools compensate by stressing intellectual attainment in the highest grades [16]. The evidence supporting such claims is generally not clear or compelling, however [17].
Not all Waldorf schools are the same [18]. The key issue at any Waldorf school is the degree to which that school is devoted to Rudolf Steiner's system of values, Anthroposophy [19]. Although the central organs of the Waldorf movement [20] try to keep Waldorf schools in line, some schools liberate themselves at least to some degree. Schools that free themselves from Anthropsophical domination may be able to give greater emphasis to academics and thus they may provide a more conventionally sound education [21]. "Waldorf-inspired" schools and Waldorf charter schools (called free schools in the UK) may sometimes be less rigidly faithful to Steiner, and thus they may be more conventionally respectable than private Waldorf/Steiner schools [22]. Private Waldorf/Steiner schools often strive to maintain their Anthroposophical ties uncompromisingly [23].
Waldorf Watch Footnotes:
[1] See "Academic Standards at Waldorf".
[2] Recent reports have indicated that Steiner Academy Bristol also has apparently attained good academic results. [See the second part of "Avanti and Steiner - How Far Will They Go?", October 24, 2019 ("Protests over plans to shut Bristol's second highest-ranking school").
[3] League tables, in this context, are school rankings.
[4] Progress 8 is a standardized performance measure used to evaluate schools in the UK. It is meant to show how the students at each school have progressed, from the end of primary education to the end of secondary education, as compared to students at other schools. [See, e.g., https://www.theschoolrun.com/secondary-school-performance-measures.]
[5] Steiner Academy Hereford is a "free school" (what in the USA would be called a charter school) — it operates much like a private school, but it is funded by the government, and it is held to at least some standards set by the government. Such schools operate under the guidance of government-approved sponsors such as multi-academy trusts (educational organizations that run two or more schools under a single board of trustees).
Steiner Academy Hereford describes itself as "the UK’s first Academy offering Steiner education." The school's website is https://www.steineracademyhereford.org.uk.
[6] GCSE is the General Certificate of Secondary Education — a set of examinations taken by students aged 15-16. The results are meant to show whether students have received a good secondary education.
[7] GCSE results fall on a scale from 1 (lowest) to 9 (highest). A score of 5 is average — equivalent to B- or C+. Whether this is truly a "strong" score is debatable. (And certainly we should ponder whether a school is doing well when only slightly more than half of its students — 60% — got a score of 5 or more.)
[8] The digits in Progress 8 scores represent years. A score of 1 indicates the students at a given school are about one year ahead of students at comparable schools; a score of -1 indicates the students at a given school are about one year behind students at comparable schools. Steiner Academy Hereford's score of .84 means the students at that school are calculated to be about 8/10s of a year ahead of students at comparable schools.
[9] See "Steiner's Specific".
[10] See "Materialism U."
[11] See "Waldorf's Spiritual Agenda" and "Holistic Education".
[12] See "head, heart and hands" in The Brief Waldorf / Steiner Encyclopedia (BWSE).
[13] See "Most Significant".
[14] See "etheric body" and "incarnation" in the BWSE.
[15] See, e.g., "Our Experience".
[16] See "The Waldorf Curriculum".
[17] For an overview of the effects of Waldorf education, e.g., the section "Waldorf Graduates" on the page "The Upside".
[18] See "Non-Waldorf Waldorfs".
[19] See "Anthroposophy" in the BWSE.
[20] E.g., the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship (SWSF) and the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America (AWSNA).
[21] For guidance of how to assess a Waldorf school, see "Clues".
[22] See "Waldorf-inspired schools" and "Waldorf charter schools" in the BWSE.
[23] For an overview of "true" Waldorf schools — those that are deeply committed to Rudolf Steiner's vision — see "Here's the Answer".
Steiner said this to teachers at the first Waldorf school:
"You need to be clear that we will not move forward if we do not stand upon a firm anthroposophical viewpoint, that is, if we do not keep ourselves free from desires for compromise ... What is important is that we cannot be moved to make any compromises ... As teachers in the Waldorf School, you will need to find your way more deeply into the insight of the spirit [provided by Anthroposophy] and to find a way of putting all compromises aside ... As Waldorf teachers, we must be true anthroposophists in the deepest sense of the word...." — Rudolf Steiner, FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER (Anthroposophic Press, 1998), pp. 117-118.
— R.R.
October 26, 2019
HERE WE GO AGAIN:
SHOTS & WALDORF
Waldorf school are often reported to be centers of anti-vaccination belief and practice. When disease outbreaks occur, the news media often discover (or rediscover) that an abnormally high number of students in Waldorf schools are unvaccinated [1].
Waldorf schools do not officially oppose vaccination in all circumstances. But, taking their lead from Waldorf founder Rudolf Steiner, the schools generally view vaccination askance. Steiner taught that vaccination can be useful in some circumstances, and he said the practice will not harm patients if appropriate precautions are taken. But he also warned that vaccinations can be terribly dangerous when these precautions (which boil down to accepting the benefits of Anthroposophy [2]) are ignored.
Currently, a disease that was thought all but eliminated — measles — is staging a comeback in many parts of the world, largely because many children are not receiving the vaccines that would protect them from this illness. Here are excerpts from a new article in The Hartford Courant [Connecticut, USA]:
School-aged child from Fairfield County
is 4th case of measles this year in Connecticut
By Russell Blair
The state Department of Public Health Friday confirmed a fourth case of measles in Connecticut this year, coming as officials grapple with the fact that while the state has a high overall immunization rate, school-by-school data show pockets of vulnerability to the measles virus.
The latest case involves a school-aged child from Fairfield County, health officials said. The student was not infectious while at school [3].
The news comes just days after DPH released school-by-school immunization data that show an increase in the number of Connecticut schools where kindergartners are now below the vaccination rate recommended by health officials to shield all children in a given school from a measles outbreak. That increase has been driven by an uptick in students receiving religious exemptions to vaccines [4]...
According to the data released Monday, 134 Connecticut schools had kindergarten classes below the 95% "herd immunity" threshold [5] at the start of the 2018-19 school year, an increase of 31% from the year before. That corresponded with a 25% year-over-year increase in kindergartners who received religious exemptions from vaccination.
Small private schools, including Christian academies and Montessori schools, continued to have high exemption rates across all grades. For example, more than 41% of students at Crossway Christian Academy in Putnam claimed exemptions. At the Housatonic Valley Waldorf School in Newtown, more than 36% of students were not immunized.
The case announced Friday is not related to three previously confirmed cases of measles in Connecticut reported in January and April, health officials said. The child contracted measles in early October. No additional information was released...
From Jan. 1 to Oct. 1 there were 1,249 cases of measles confirmed in 31 states. That’s the highest annual total in 24 years....
[10/26/2019 https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-news-connecticut-measles-fourth-case-20191025-iuu7vagmdvcszffu6cpcnkjsvu-story.html This article originally appeared on October 25.]
Waldorf Watch Response:
Rudolf Steiner's followers generally believe that children should be allowed to contract various childhood diseases. Getting sick can be helpful to children as they incarnate on Earth, Anthroposophists believe — illnesses are part of the process through which children integrate their unique spiritual identities (their spiritual egos or "I"s [6]) with the physical bodies they inherit from their parents. But, Anthroposophists contend, vaccination can interfere with this necessary childhood process. Thus, a Waldorf teacher has written this:
"Childhood diseases...result from a necessary developmental process in which the human being tries to overcome influences from the inherited physical body. The child must bring inherited substances into line with his own 'I' ... The intensity of this process depends on the degree of conformity between the physical body and the 'I'. The bigger the difference, the more intense the harmonization process expressed in these types of disease will have to be. This basic concept of the origin of childhood diseases has been complicated by new forms of medication that suppress symptoms (vaccination) ... [T]he harmonization process is partly blocked by their use." — Henk van Oort [7]
Steiner said that vaccines will not harm children who are raised "in the anthroposophical way." Such children are protected by the marvelous spiritual powers of Anthroposophy. But other children may be damaged terribly if vaccines are injected into their bodies. Vaccinations then expose human beings to the terrible powers of the arch-demon Ahriman [8]:
"[W]hen you vaccinate someone and you are an anthroposophist, bringing him up in the anthroposophical way [9], it will do no harm. It will harm only those who grow up with materialistic ideas [10]. Then vaccination becomes a kind of ahrimanic power [11]; the individual can no longer rise above a certain materialistic way of feeling. And that is really why vaccination causes us concern, because people are 'garbed through' with a phantom [12]." — Rudolf Steiner [13]
Waldorf Watch Footnotes:
[1] We have covered this matter extensively in the past. [See "vaccination" in the Waldorf Watch Annex Index.]
[2] Anthroposophy (pronounced an-throw-POS-o-fee) is the religion cobbled together by Rudolf Steiner. [See "Anthroposophy" in The Brief Waldorf / Steiner Encyclopedia(BWSE).]
[3] The article does not identify the school attended by the child. It may or may not be a Waldorf school. The website for the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America curretnly lists just one Waldorf school in Connecticut: Housatonic Valley Waldorf School, in Newtown, Connecticut. Newtown is located in Fairfield County.
[4] Religious exemptions are generally granted to those who claim that their spiritual beliefs bar certain practices. (Rules vary from one jurisdiction to another. In many cases, the claimants are not required to be members of recognized religions.)
[5] "Herd immunity" is the general immunity of an entire population attained when a high enough percentage of that population becomes immune, principally due to vaccination.
[6] See "I" in the BWSE.
[7] Henk Van Oort, ANTHROPOSOPHY A-Z (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2011), p. 20.
(The parenthetical reference to vaccination occurs in the text; I did not add it. - R.R.)
[8] See "Ahriman".
[9] Steiner's use of language was often imprecise. Here, he may initially seem to be describing Anthroposophical doctors ("when you vaccinate someone"), but more generally he is speaking of all individuals (including parents or teachers) who arrange for a child to be vaccinated — and Steiner's main focus is on the child, the person who is brought up (by parents or teachers) "in the anthroposophical way." Essentially, Steiner is saying that children will not be harmed by vaccines if they are brought up within the Anthroposophical culture (the culture as one finds in Anthroposophical homes and in an Anthroposophical schools — Waldorf schools).
[10] I.e., children who are brought up in non-Anthroposophical ways — in worldly or materialistic ways. (Steiner dubbed ideas "materialistic" if they arise from a worldview that essentially deems the physical world to be the only reality, ideas that disregard the spiritual realm).
[11] I.e., it is imbued with the power of Ahriman and/or his minions. [See "Ahrimanic beings, Ahrimanic powers" in the BWSE.]
[12] I.e., they are possessed by an Ahrimanic spirit.
[13] Rudolf Steiner, PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALING (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2013), p. 238.
Steiner repeatedly stated his view on such matters. So, for instance:
"[I]f human beings are not prepared to take up impulses which can only come from spiritual knowledge [i.e., Anthroposophy], the body will be filled with demonic powers. Humanity is facing a destiny where the body may be filled with ahrimanic demonic powers ... [T]he heirs of modern materialism will look for the vaccine to make the body 'healthy', that is, make its constitution such that this body no longer talks of such rubbish as soul and spirit, but takes a 'sound' view of the forces which live in engines and in chemistry ... Materialistic physicians will be asked to drive the souls out of humanity." — Rudolf Steiner, THE FALL OF THE SPIRITS OF DARKNESS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2008), pp. 84-85.
— R.R.
October 24, 2019
AVANTI AND STEINER -
HOW FAR WILL THEY GO?
Three failing Steiner schools in the United Kingdom (UK) have been taken over by the Avanti Schools Trust [1], which is reportedly planning to change the schools profoundly. The key change would be reducing or even severing the schools' ties to the Steiner/Waldorf educational movement [2]. While the extent of the planned reforms remains to be worked out, the schools could end up losing their distinctive Steiner character — they would no longer follow the Steiner/Waldorf curriculum nor would they use Steiner/Waldorf methods [3].
But at least some officials at the three schools reportedly hope that Avanti's changes will not be so extensive. They profess hope that the underlying Steiner approach will continue to prevail at the schools.
Meanwhile, pro-Steiner protestors have gathered to push back against changes that they fear will be too sweeping.
Here are excerpts from two news reports.
1.
From Devon Live [Devonshire, England]:
Head of Exeter Steiner school remains hopeful
its principles will be upheld by new trust
The school, which had to be shut down for a week a year ago after serious failings were found by inspectors [4], publicly announced in June it is being taken over by Avanti Schools Trust (AST)
By Anita Merritt
The acting principal of Exeter’s Steiner school [5] has told how he remains hopeful that the Steiner ethos within its curriculum will continue, despite changes announced by the trust who have taken over the school.
The school, which had to be shut down for a week a year ago after serious failings were found by inspectors, publicly announced in June it is being taken over by Avanti Schools Trust (AST).
[Avanti] is also taking over state Steiner academies in Bristol and Frome [6] which like Exeter’s Steiner school were also placed in special measures by Ofsted [7]...
[W]ith the transfer due to be completed in the coming weeks, Avanti has insisted it never intended to keep the schools Steiner, according to Schools Week [8].
Avanti is running a curriculum review to determine what influence, if any, the Waldorf principles which underpin Steiner education will have. It is due to be completed in March...
Paul Hougham, acting principal of Steiner Academy Exeter, said: “The ‘if any’ qualification...doesn’t convey my understanding of Avanti’s commitments to these schools.
“There remains a tremendous opportunity for the renewal of Steiner Waldorf pedagogy, within the Avanti way...”
[A] statement on the Avanti website [said, in part] “The aim of the planned curriculum review is to investigate how the curriculum in the three re-brokered schools can be aligned with aspects of Waldorf principles which are in synergy with the ‘Avanti Way’...”
Avanti currently runs seven Hindu schools which provide yoga and mindfulness lessons. The “Avanti Way” underpins the school’s focus on character formation and spiritual insight [9].
[10/24/2019 https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/head-exeter-steiner-school-remains-3458269 This article originally appeared on October 23.]
2.
From Bristol Live [Bristol, England]:
Protests over plans to shut Bristol's
second highest-ranking school
Parents have been warned they will find it very hard to get a place at another secondary school for in [sic] September 2020 start date
By Emma Grimshaw
Hundreds of campaigners protested outside of the Department for Education's regional office after it was announced Steiner Academy Bristol could be forced to close its secondary school [10].
Plans to shut the upper section of the...school were announced earlier this year despite pupils achieving some of the best results in our city for GCSES [11]...
In August, the academy's first cohort of pupils received their GCSE results and the school ranked the second highest in Bristol based on English and maths results [12]...
[T]he academy came under fire after being thrown into special measures by a damning Ofsted report at the beginning of last year.
Inspectors said pupils were being put at avoidable risk of harm [13] and school leaders were issued with a "termination warning notice" [14] forcing it to join a multi-academy trust or face being closed down.
Before the school shut for the summer holidays, bosses [15] announced they were teaming up with Avanti Schools Trust...
A spokesperson for parent campaigners said..."[W]e are parents who believe in Steiner education who are fighting for our own children right here, right now, but this is bigger than Steiner and bigger than our own children.
"We are fighting for the right to alternative education in England for all parents and children now and in the future..."
The Steiner academies in Bristol and Frome are two of three state Steiner schools in England which were deemed inadequate [16] and put into special measures by Ofsted in 2018.
Parents from both Frome and Bristol were at the protest....
[10/24/2019 https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/protests-over-plans-shut-bristols-3452390 This article originally appeared on October 23.]
Waldorf Watch Footnotes:
[1] Avanti is a multi-academy trust, an educational organization that runs multiple schools under a single board of trustees. [See https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/multi-academy-trusts-establishing-and-developing-your-trust and https://avanti.org.uk.]
[2] See "Saving Themselves by Losing Themselves?", October 22, 2019.
[3] For background, see "The Waldorf Curriculum" and "Methods".
[4] See "Inadequate: Bristol, Frome, &..."
[5] This is Steiner Academy Exeter. [See https://steineracademyexeter.org.uk.]
[6] These are Steiner Academy Bristol [https://steineracademybristol.org.uk] and Steiner Academy Frome [https://www.steineracademyfrome.co.uk].
[7] "Special measures" are emergency procedures implemented with the goal of quickly improving a subpar school. Ofsted is the UK government's Office for Standards in Education [https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted.]
[8] See https://schoolsweek.co.uk/rebrokered-free-schools-wont-keep-steiner-ethos-says-new-trust/.
[9] Avanti is now in charge. The key question is whether Avanti will find commonalities between its approach and the Steiner/Waldorf approach. Where no commonality is found, the Avanti approach will presumably prevail.
[10] Avanti has elected to convert Steiner Academy Bristol into a primary school. Among other things, this means students who were in upper grades at Steiner Academy Bristol, or who were planning on entering those grades, must now — at somewhat short notice — find others schools to attend.
[11] This is the General Certificate of Secondary Education — an examination taken by students aged 15-16.
[12] Ranking second in the city of Bristol may or may not mean much, depending on how well the others schools in the city did. On the other hand, if there is firm evidence that Steiner Academy Bristol is providing and academically sound education, this would remove one of the bases for Ofsted's criticism of the school. While it is not impossible for a Steiner/Waldorf schools to provide a good education, these schools have generally had low academic standards. [See "Academic Standards at Waldorf".] Steiner/Waldorf schools generally have their focus elsewhere, not on academics. [See, e.g., "Waldorf's Spiritual Agenda" and "Holistic Education".] Then, too, Anthroposophists generally reject much of modern science and scholarship — what is otherwise considered reliable knowledge — because these often run contrary to Anthroposophical beliefs. [See, e.g., "Summing Up".]
[13] One major finding by Ofsted inspectors has been that Steiner schools in the UK often fail to safeguard their students adequately. [See, e.g., "More Inspections, More Failures", January 17, 2019.] But safeguarding has been just one area of concern for the inspectors, who have often faulted Steiner schools for several other shortcomings, including poor teaching and dysfunctional management. [See "The Steiner School Crisis".]
[14] See "Steiner Academy Bristol Girds for a Fight", February 16, 2019.
[15] I.e., leaders of the school.
[16] "Inadeqaute" is the lowest of four evaluations issued by Ofsted — it is a failing grade, indicating that a school has numerous, severe problems.
— R.R.
October 23, 2019
CHANGED STEINER SCHOOLS —
NO LONGER STEINER AT ALL?
The crisis among Steiner schools in the United Kingdom (UK) is apparently deepening [1].
Three failing Steiner schools in the UK had turned to the Avanti Schools Trust [2] for rescue. The schools hoped Avanti would allow them to continue operating much as they had before, using a Steiner curriculum and Steiner methods [3].
But now Avanti has revealed that it intends to change these schools to such an extent that they may no longer be genuine Steiner institutions [4].
Here are excerpts from a new report in Devon Live [Devonshire, UK]:
Exeter is losing its only Steiner school
The trust is also changing the names of the schools to remove any reference to Steiner, and is reviewing a previous suggestion that the new names carry the tagline 'inspired by Waldorf principles'
By Anita Merritt
Exeter’s Steiner school [5], which had to be shut down for a week a year ago after serious failings were found by inspectors, will no longer be run with a Steiner ethos.
In June it was announced Avanti Schools Trust (AST) was taking over three state Steiner academies in the south west – Exeter, Bristol and Frome [6] – after all three were placed in special measures [7] by Ofsted [8].
At the time, Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship [9], the umbrella body for Steiner schools, said the schools would remain Steiner under the new trust, and “carry forward our philosophy of Waldorf education, which sits at the heart of our ethos”.
However, with the transfer due to be completed in the coming weeks, Avanti has insisted it never intended to keep the schools Steiner, according to Schools Week [10]...
Avanti is running a curriculum review to determine what influence, if any, the Waldorf principles [will continue to have at these schools]...
The trust is also changing the names of the schools to remove any reference to Steiner...
Exeter's 442-pupil Steiner school was shut down for more than a week following a visit from inspectors in October 2018 who discovered a catalogue of failings at the school including leadership being 'dysfunctional at every level' [11]...
[The school's] Ofsted inspection last October highlighted serious inadequacies in leadership, quality of teaching and safeguarding [12]...
A spokesperson for Avanti told Schools Week: “We have made it clear from the beginning, they will first and foremost be Avanti schools. This is not Avanti joining the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship, this is Steiner schools joining Avanti.”
Avanti is also facing complaints from parents and pupils about plans to change the age range of two of the schools from all-through [13] next year.
More than 100 parents and pupils held a protest outside Department for Education offices in Bristol yesterday over proposals to make Steiner Academy Bristol a primary school and Steiner Academy Frome a...middle school [14]. Both currently teach pupils up to age 16.
The [Avanti] spokesperson said Avanti was having to make the change due to concerns about low pupil numbers, a lack of need for places [15] and concerns the [previous] entry model was not “financially sustainable”.
Avanti also said an agreement that exempts all key stage 1 pupils [16] from testing at Steiner schools [17] will no longer be in place once they join the trust....
[10/23/2019 https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/exeter-losing-only-steiner-school-3457456]
Waldorf Watch Footnotes:
[1] See "The Steiner School Crisis".
[2] Avanti is a multi-academy trust, an educational organization that runs multiple schools under a single board of trustees. [See https://avanti.org.uk.] Until now, Avanti has exclusively run Hindu schools in the UK.
[3] For background, see "The Waldorf Curriculum" and "Methods".
[4] If Avanti changes the schools so completely that they are no longer real Steiner schools, then the three schools would have to be added to the list of Steiner/Waldorf failures — Steiner or Waldorf schools that were unable to fulfill their original vision. [For other instances, see "Failure".]
[5] This is Steiner Academy Exeter. [See https://steineracademyexeter.org.uk.] The academy is a Steiner "free school" — comparable to a Steiner charter school in the USA.
Exeter is a city in the county of Devonshire (also called Devon), in southwestern England.
[6] See "Inadequate: Bristol, Frome, &..."
[7] "Special measures" are emergency procedures implemented with the goal of quickly improving a subpar school.
[8] See https://www.steinerwaldorf.org.
[9] Ofsted is the UK government's Office for Standards in Education. [See https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted.] The inspectors who found problems in the three Steiner schools work for Ofsted.
[10] See "Saving Themselves by Losing Themselves?", October 22, 2019.
[11] See, e.g., "Devastating Inspection Report on U.K. Steiner Academy - Part 2", November 18, 2018.
[12] "Safeguarding," in the context of school operations, consists of provisions to ensure the safety of students. Ofsted has faulted several Steiner schools for inadequate safeguarding. [See, again, "The Steiner School Crisis".]
[13] I.e., a school offering classes for students of all age levels prior to college. In the USA, these are often called K-12 schools (schools spanning kindergarten through 12th grade).
[14] I.e., the Steiner Academies in Bristol and Frome would both be partially shut down. Steiner Academy Bristol would shut down its classes above the primary level, and Steiner Academy Frome would shut down its classes below anabove the middle-school level.
[15] I.e., Steiner Academy Exeter currently offers classes at levels for which there is little if any demand.
[16] In the UK, these are generally students in the 1st and 2nd grades — kids between the ages of 5 and 7.
[17] For esoteric reasons, Steiner schools generally postpone instruction in reading, writing, and basic math until children are about 7 years old. [See "Most Significant". The schools are waiting for the kids' "etheric bodies" to incarnate. See "Incarnation".] For this reason, Steiner schools seek exemption from requirements to test students on these subjects until after stage 1.
This issue bears on the general question of academic standards at Steiner or Waldorf schools. Historically, these standards have been low. [See "Academic Standards at Waldorf".]
— R.R.
October 22, 2019
SAVING THEMSELVES BY
LOSING THEMSELVES?
School inspectors in the United Kingdom (UK) have found serious deficiencies in a number of Steiner schools. Problems at the schools have ranged from bad teaching to bad management to bad safeguarding [1].
In order to avoid being forced to close, three of the worst-performing Steiner schools have agreed to be taken over by the Avanti Schools Trust, a "multi-academy trust" that operates several schools under a single board of trustees. In the past, Avanti has exclusively administered Hindu schools in the UK.
The alliance between Avanti and the three Steiner schools had seemed dubious to many observers. Did Avanti truly understand the Anthroposophical nature of Steiner schools? [2] Did the Steiner schools truly understand Avanti's practices and intentions?
The inherent difficulties of the alliance have now surfaced. Avanti now says it will detach the three Steiner schools from their Anthroposophical roots. Whether the faculties of the three schools will accept this remains to be seen. Has the price of survival become too great?
From the UK education magazine Schools Week:
Rebrokered free schools [3]
won’t keep Steiner ethos,
says new trust
[By] Pippa Allen-Kinross
An academy trust selected to take over three failing Steiner schools is preparing to move them away from the Steiner Waldorf ethos that underpins them.
It was announced in June that the Avanti Schools Trust had been selected to run three state Steiner academies in the south west – Bristol (pictured), Exeter and Frome [4] – after all three were placed in special measures [5] by Ofsted [6]...
When the transfer to Avanti was announced, the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship, the umbrella body for Steiner schools, said the schools would remain Steiner under the new trust, and “carry forward our philosophy of Waldorf education, which sits at the heart of our ethos”.
However, with the transfer due to be completed in the coming weeks, Avanti has insisted it never intended to keep the schools Steiner [7].
Avanti is running a curriculum review to determine what influence – if any – the Waldorf principles which underpin Steiner education will have...
The trust is also changing the names of the schools to remove any reference to Steiner...
Avanti currently runs seven Hindu schools which provide yoga and mindfulness lessons. The “Avanti Way” underpins the school’s [sic: schools'] focus on character formation and spiritual insight [8]...
Fran Russell, executive director at the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship, said the academies [9] “could not have delivered a complete Steiner Waldorf experience” because Avanti had failed to ensure pupils won’t receive formal education before they are six [10]...
Snap inspections of nine state and private Steiner schools at the end of last year found six were “inadequate” and three “requires improvement” [11]. Ofsted was given power to inspect all Steiner schools after chief inspector Amanda Spielman warned in January of “deeply concerning” failures.
[10/22/2019 https://schoolsweek.co.uk/rebrokered-free-schools-wont-keep-steiner-ethos-says-new-trust/]
Waldorf Watch Footnotes:
[1] See "The Steiner School Crisis".
"Safeguarding," in the context of school operations, consists of provisions to ensure the safety of students.
[2] To delve into the Anthroposophical nature of Steiner or Waldorf schools, see, e.g., "Here's the Answer", "Soul School", and "Waldorf's Spiritual Agenda". Also see "Anthroposophy" and "Waldorf Schools" in The Brief Waldorf / Steiner Encyclopedia (BWSE).
[3] UK "free schools" are, in effect, private schools that are funded by the government — they are similar to charter schools in the USA.
[4] See "Inadequate: Bristol, Frome, &..."
[5] These are emergency procedures meant to quickly improve a failing school.
[6] The inspectors who found fault with the Steiner schools work for the UK government's Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted).
[7] Evidently the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship and the Avanti Schools Trust have had fundamental disagreements from the start, disagreements that seem to be surfacing only now.
[8] Steiner schools, too, might be described as focusing on "character formation and spiritual insight," although what they would mean by such terms may be quite different from what Avanti means. The apparent congruence of the Steiner and Avanti "ways" may have masked the deeper conflicts between the two approaches.
[9] I.e., the three Steiner schools as reformed by Avanti. (Steiner free schools in the UK are generally identified as "academies" whereas private Steiner schools in the UK are generally identified as "schools.")
[10] One difference between Steiner schools and most other schools (but by no means the only difference) is that Steiner schools generally do not begin teaching reading, writing, and basic math until children reach the age of six or seven. Thus, standard early-childhood education is absent from these schools. [See "The Waldorf Curriculum". Also see "early-childbood education" in the BWSE.]
[11] These are the lowest of the four evaluations Ofsted applies to schools it inspects. "Inadequate" is a failing grade; "Requires Improvement" is a low, unsatisfactory passing grade.
— R.R.
October 21, 2019
SEX ABUSE ALLEGATIONS -
INADEQUATE SUPERVISION?
Waldorf schools have come under increasing criticism in recent months for their alleged failure to adequately protect their students. In extreme cases, the schools have been accused to turning a blind eye to the sexual abuse of students [1].
Now a major newspaper in France — Le Parisien — has printed a report about alleged sexual abuse in a French Waldorf school [2]. Here are excerpts:
Sexual assaults between children:
a Steiner school in Essonne [3] in turmoil
By Bartolomé Simon
Since 2017, stories of unwanted sexual touching have shaken the Verrières-le-Buisson [4] establishment, which practices the controversial Steiner-Waldorf pedagogy. Some families demand accountability, others support the school's management.
...According to our information, three cases of sexual assaults between children, to varying degrees, took place among kindergarten students between 2017 and 2018.
The latest one concerns Amélie's daughter*. This mother filed a complaint in June 2018 against the school for lack of supervision. One evening in May, when she came home, her 3-year-old daughter told her that one of her classmates from kindergarten, aged 6, had dragged her away and asked her to "take off her panties". "My daughter told me: he was hurting me," says Amélie.
...At the same time, a complaint of rape was filed by the parents of a young boy. He was reportedly the victim of digital penetrations by several children. The school principal and teacher, who were present that day, were interviewed at the police station. "The investigation continues with the gendarmerie," says a judicial source.
...[At] a "crisis meeting" in April [between school officials and students' parents, some parents reported other incidents]...
...During post-meeting email exchanges, the school management, embarrassed, reminded parents that "the content of meetings must remain [confidential]". However, the content of this meeting reached The Information Collection Office (CRIP) of the Directorate of Youth and Child Protection [5] ... The Crip, which is responsible for protecting minors at risk, has transferred the case to the social services of the Ministry of National Education [6].
...For its part, management...[denies] a link between the episodes. "Children can be exposed to screens [7], or find themselves in difficult family situations," says Laure Lusseyran, the school's director. "Putting everything on the school is a little facile."
However, the multiplication of children's testimonies raises questions. Are children well supervised at Steiner Schools? ...
Steiner pedagogy tends to give children a high degree of autonomy [8]...
...A "framed freedom" [9] is granted to youngsters...
"According to Steiner, children should be left alone to settle their scores from previous lives [10]," says a former student and teacher at a Steiner school...
...[I]n the early 2000s, Steiner schools attracted the attention of the public authority responsible for detecting sectarian aberrations [11]. A general inspection was conducted, but it did not conclude that indoctrination had occurred...
...However, [the authority] "remains attentive".
In Verrières, some parents have decided to remove their children from the school following cases of touching between pupils, but the majority have chosen to keep their children in the school...
...Elise does not understand the parents who have taken their children away. "Everyone reacts differently, but I think it should be settled between the parents in the school," she asserts. "Some people think that children live in a cocoon. But we exist within the wider society. Kindergartens are not Care Bears!"
* Names have been changed.
[10/21/2019 http://www.leparisien.fr/essonne-91/essonne-agressions-sexuelles-entre-enfants-plainte-pour-viol-que-se-passe-t-il-a-l-ecole-steiner-21-10-2019-8176884.php Translation by Roger Rawlings, relying heavily on DeepL Translator and Google Translate.]
Waldorf Watch Footnotes:
[1] See, e.g., "Safety, Karma, Gods, and Love, October 21, 2018, "U.K. Steiner Schools to Receive Special Scrutiny", December 10, 2018, and "Charges of Abuse in Waldorf Schools - II", September 25, 2019.
The essence of the allegations in the current case is that Waldorf schools, with their emphasis on "freedom," fail to supervise students properly. [Concerning Rudolf Steiner's teachings about freedom — and whether the Steiner approach truly promotes human liberty — see "Freedom".]
[2] For previous coverage of alleged abuse in French Waldorf schools, see, e.g., "From France: Charges of Abuse in Waldorf Schools", September 24, 2019. (A follow-up item looks at cases in the USA: September 25, 2019.)
[3] Essonne is a department south of Paris. (Departments are mid-level French governmental units, falling between communes and administrative regions.)
[4] Verrières-le-Buisson is a commune (a small governmental unit) in Essonne.
[5] "The Information Collection Unit (CRIP) of the Directorate of Youth and Child Protection is responsible for collecting, processing and evaluating information on children at risk or at risk of becoming so" [http://www.udaf16.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/CRIP_cd16.pdf].
[6] The Ministry of National Education runs the public education system in France, including overseeing arrangements made with private educational organizations.
[7] I.e., movie screens, television screens, computer screens, smart-phone screens — all of which may arguably have corrupting influence. The Steiner belief system, Anthroposophy, is generally averse to modern technologies. [See "technology" in The Brief Waldorf / Steiner Encyclopedia.]
[8] I.e., children are given scope for unsupervised play and similar "free" activities.
[9] I.e., freedom within limits.
[10] I.e., children should be free to enact their karmas. Karma and reincarnation are key Anthroposophical beliefs. [See "Karma" and "Reincarnation".] Critics have long alleged that bullying and other forms of abuse are found in Waldorf schools because the teachers think children must be allowed to behave as their karmas dictate. [See, e.g., "Slaps".]
[11] This is Miviludes (Mission interministérielle de vigilance et de lutte contre les dérives sectaires), a French government agency that seeks to expose "movements with a cultic character whose actions affront the rights of man and fundamental liberties, or which constitute a threat to public order or which are contrary to [French] laws and regulations." — The Journal Officiel of 28 November 2002, quoted in Mission interministérielle de vigilance et de lutte contre les dérives sectaires. In a highly controversial move, evidently welcomed by Anthroposophists, the French government is in the process of downgrading and weakening Miviludes.
The relevance to the allegations of sexual abuse in Waldorf schools is that the schools' alleged inattention may stem from the cultish character and beliefs of Anthroposophy.
— R.R.
October 19, 2019
SHOULD YOU FOLLOW TECHIES
INTO LOW-TECH WALDORFS?
Waldorf schools have received a good deal of positive publicity in recent years because of reports that some executives at high-tech companies in Silicon Valley send their children to low-tech private schools, specifically Waldorf schools [1]. Disregarding the fact that most tech execs do not send their kids to such schools, proponents of Waldorf education have pounced on these reports. They have argued that tech insiders obviously know that children — especially young children — should be shielded from the dire effects of computers, smart phones, and other harmful high-tech gadgetry. They have offered this as proof that the Waldorf aversion to modern technology is the correct approach [2].
Now an essay in The Los Angeles Review of Books calls much of this anti-tech, pro-Waldorf thinking into question. Here are some excerpts:
The Smartest People in the Room?
What Silicon Valley’s Supposed Obsession
with Tech-Free Private Schools Really Tells Us
By Morgan G. Ames
IN THE PAST SEVERAL YEARS, the media has produced a steady stream of stories about Silicon Valley tech executives who send their children to tech-shunning private schools. Early coverage included a widely discussed 2011 New York Times article about the preponderance of “digerati” offspring, including the children of eBay’s chief technology officer, at the tech-adverse Waldorf School of the Peninsula [3]...
These articles assume that techies have access to secret wisdom about the harmful effects of technology on children. Based on two decades of living among, working with, and researching Silicon Valley technology employees, I can confidently assert that this secret knowledge does not exist [4].
To be sure, techies may know more than most people do about the technical details of the systems they build, but that’s a far cry from having expertise in child development or the broader social implications of technologies [5]...
Private schools almost by definition have to craft stories that appeal to privileged strivers anxious about their children’s futures [6]. Some of these stories recount how their graduates’ creative brilliance was spawned in their school’s tech-free environment. Related ones ply anti-contamination themes, and fetishize the purity of childhood. Techie parents are as susceptible as anyone else [7]...
The more important point here is that believing techie parents have secret insider knowledge about the harmful effects of children’s technology usage [8] reinforces the dangerous myth that techies are always the smartest people in the room...
As an example of how a technical background does not insulate people from specious reasoning, we need look no further than the vaccination rates at the elite, technology-shunning Waldorf schools in and around Silicon Valley [9]. Scientific consensus has long upheld the safety and importance of vaccines. Yet at the Waldorf School of the Peninsula, which is the techie-dominated, tech-shunning school featured in the 2011 New York Times article, an average of only 36 percent of kindergarteners were fully vaccinated in the five years before California’s personal belief exemption was removed in 2016 [10]. If so many techie parents at this school are susceptible to vaccine misinformation, they are surely just as susceptible to screen time dystopianism, unfounded fears of “contamination,” and other forms of misinformation [11]...
... Just as technical backgrounds have not insulated techie Waldorf parents from specious reasoning regarding vaccines, they have afforded them no privileged ability to assess technology’s influence on us more generally [12]....
[10/19/19 https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-smartest-people-in-the-room-what-silicon-valleys-supposed-obsession-with-tech-free-private-schools-really-tells-us/ This article originally appeared on October 18.]
Waldorf Watch Footnotes:
[1] See, e.g., "A Silicone Valley School That Doesn't Compute", The New York Times, Oct. 22, 2011 [https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/technology/at-waldorf-school-in-silicon-valley-technology-can-wait.html].
[2] For background and analysis, see, e.g., "Digital Citizenship and the Electronic Doppelgänger", June 4, 2019; "Waldorf, Technology, and Ahriman (Again)", December 28, 2018; "Computers, Demons, and Waldorf", November 19, 2018; and "Screens Everywhere: How to Cope", September 6, 2018.
[3] This school has campuses in Los Altos and Mountain View, California. To visit the school's website, see https://waldorfpeninsula.org. (You might pause to ask yourself why an anti-tech school has a website, a distinctly high-tech artifact.)
[4] Ames teaches at the School of Information, University of California, in Berkeley, California.
[5] Ames argues that tech workers know tech very well, but they do not generally know much about the actual effects of their products on the human psyche or on child development. In fact, Ames contends, technological educations and professions may be very narrow and specialized — they do not, in general, equip individuals to make moral or psychological/spiritual judgements.
[6] I.e., private schools — which are often expensive — generally cater to the desires of well-to-do parents ("privileged strivers").
[7] I.e., upscale, privileged tech execs are just as prone as anyone else to embrace myths that play to their fetishes and unfounded inclinations. Among these myths are the Waldorf claims that Waldorf grads display a unique "creative brilliance," and the proposition that this supposed brilliance can be attributed to the low-tech Waldorf culture.
[8] The center of Ames' argument is that tech workers have no "inside knowledge" about the effects of technology on children. Tech workers are not necessarily smarter or better informed than anyone else. Hence, whether some tech executive send their children to low-tech schools tells us virtually nothing about the value or effects of technology. It is certainly not a proof that low-tech schools like Waldorf are in any way better than other types of schools.
[9] Ames argues that the anti-vaccination views held by many parents of Waldorf students show that these parents — including tech execs — are not particularly wise or well-informed. Waldorf schools are often centers of unfounded anti-vaccination belief and practice. [See, e.g., "Waldorf, Measles, The Times — and Demons", June 13, 2019, and "Waldorf & Measles: Seeking Context", May 30, 2019.]
[10] California lawmakers have tightened vaccination standards, forcing more parents to vaccinate their children, thus increasing the vaccination rates at California schools.
[11] I.e., these parents are prone to espouse a range of unsubstantiated beliefs, including fear of the effects of modern technology on children (fear of vaccines, fear of excessive exposure to computer screens, fear of unnatural or "contaminated" substances, and so forth).
[12] There may, of course, be sensible reasons to be cautious about giving kids too many shots, or letting kids spend too much time lost in virtual realities, and so forth. But there is no validity in beliefs that arise from specious reasoning, dystopianism, or misinformation. And, Ames argues, much of "wisdom" of tech workers — including those who select Waldorf schools for their kids — arises from precisely these sorts of errors.
We might add that the Waldorf take of technology has little or no basis in reality. It derives largely from a fear of Ahriman and other demons. [See, e.g., "The Wordwide Web of Ahrimanic Horrors", August 23, 2019.]
— R.R.
October 17, 2019
◊ News Briefs ◊
1.
STEINER SCHOOLING
DOWN ON THE FARM
From the news service Stuff [New Zealand]:
New farm-based Motueka school aims for 2021 opening
[By] Cherie Sivignon
A planned new farm-based Motueka Steiner School could be welcoming pupils from February 2021.
Negotiations with the Ministry of Education are under way to open it as a state-integrated school on a 13-hectare farm site near Motueka [1].
State-integrated schools teach the New Zealand Curriculum but keep their own special character as part of their programme [2]...
Stage one of the building project was due to begin in early 2020 with a budget of $1.8 million...
The design [for the school campus has] eco-friendly features such as the use of locally grown timber, passive solar, reusing stormwater, cycleways and biodynamic land management [3]...
There are eight state-integrated Steiner schools in New Zealand....
2.
STEINER SCHOOLING
BY ANY OTHER NAME
From the Galway Advertiser [Ireland]:
Autumn events at Galway Steiner School/Cuan na Gaillimhe
Galway Steiner National School [4] transferred from its previous patron body, Lifeways Ireland [4], to the patronage of Galway and Roscommon Education and Training Board [5] ... [The school] is now known as Cuan na Gaillimhe Community National School [6].
The new arrangement will help provide a framework of support for the school, while the Steiner pedagogy in the school will be maintained and Lifeways Ireland will continue to advise the school in relation to Steiner pedagogy...
An autumn workshop on the essentials of Steiner education in home and school will take place on Thursday October 24...
On Friday November 8 at 5pm the school will host a Martinmas family lantern walk [7]...."
Waldorf Watch Footnotes:
[1] Motueka is a town near the northern coast of New Zealand's South Island.
[2] State-integrated schools in New Zealand are roughly comparable to charter schools in the USA or free schools in the UK. State-integrated Steiner schools in New Zealand must follow the national curriculum, but they can use Steiner methods to give all subjects a Steiner inflection — they have "their own special character."
[3] "Biodynamics" is a form of organic agriculture based on precepts laid down by Rudolf Steiner. [See "Biodynamics".] Waldorf or Steiner schools often have biodynamic gardens in which students may be required to work. A "farm-based Steiner School" will presumably place biodynamic agriculture near the center of its program.
[4] Galway is a city on Ireland's west coast, in the county of Galway.
An "national school" in Ireland is a primary school funded by the government but administered cooperatively by the government, a patron body, and local citizens. A "patron body" is an administrative organization that oversees one or more schools, exercising formal control and establishing an educational code for the school(s). [See the next footnote.]
[5] In Ireland, "Patrons [i.e., patron bodies] control the ethos and philosophy of a school, appoint the chair of the board of management and approve the membership of the board. This gives the patron huge power to decide, for instance, the religious or philosophical approach of the school, what is taught in relationship and sexuality education (RSE) and how classes are structured." [https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/patron-bodies-who-really-controls-your-child-s-school-1.3871501]
Lifeways has served as the patron for most Steiner schools in Ireland. "Lifeways Ireland CLG. is the recognized Patron Body for Steiner National Schools in the Republic of Ireland ... The ethos or values of 'Steiner National Schools' are those derived from Steiner Pedagogy...." [https://www.lifeways.ie].
[6] Roscommon is a town east of Galway, in the country of Roscommon.
"Galway and Roscommon ETB is a local education authority, established on the 1st July 2013 ... We provide a comprehensive range of quality education programmes and supports designed to meet the needs of young people and adults throughout the counties of Galway and Roscommon ... Today Galway and Roscommon ETB runs twenty second level schools, an extensive adult education service and a range of post-leaving certificate courses...." [http://galwayroscommon.etb.ie/about-us/us/]
[7] There is evidently a growing trend among Steiner schools to drop the designations "Rudolf Steiner" or "Steiner" from their names. In at least some instances, this is because Rudolf Steiner has become widely known known as a racist. [See, e.g., "Taking the Name Steiner Out of the Steiner Name", September 21, 2019.] [https://sites.google.com/site/waldorfwatchannex/september-2019].
[8] Waldorf or Steiner schools hold many festivals during the year, at least some of which are distinctly religious. Martinmas is the mass of St. Martin, which comes on November 11 each year. At Waldorf/Steiner schools, the observance of Martinmas often includes an evening procession outdoors, carrying lanterns, and the singing of hymns.
— R.R.