WOW!

Visitors to Waldorf schools are often wowed. Parents who enroll their kids in Waldorf schools are often, at least initially, wowed. Waldorf schools have an undeniable wow factor. (Whether the “wow” lasts may be a different story, of course.)

Here is an excerpt from a recent Waldorf-wow! posting:

"Ocean Charter is a Waldorf Education Public Charter School [in California, USA] and [it is] nothing like any other Public school I’ve seen. They learn by painting, drawing, creating, and/or singing songs (multiplication / division  /mythology / geology / everything!)…instead of textbooks. Their teachers are not music teachers, they are not experts in any one subject — they teach all of it, and it is a strong and loving understanding between the teacher and student that the Teachers are learning along with the kids."  [2-16-2012  http://tiffanypeterson.com/tag/waldorf-education/]

This is a typical, wide-eyed, enthusiastic first impression of a Waldorf school. Many people respond this way when first seeing Waldorf education in action.

But many people also become disillusioned, sometimes quite soon. [1]

Pause and consider what the blogger's enthusiasm. Are you equally enthusiastic? "Painting, drawing, creating, and/or singing songs" are wonderful activities, and they should be included in all school curricula. But can kids really learn "everything" by painting, drawing, singing, and so forth? Can they learn physics through these activities? Algebra? French? World history? The main thing you learn from doing a lot of painting is how to paint. This is a good thing to learn. But it isn't a method for learning "everything." Ditto for "drawing, creating, and/or singing songs" — good activities, but not the end-all and be-all of education. (A teacher might come up with a clever song that lists all the Presidents of the United States in order, and kids might learn this song, but we would be fooling ourselves if we thought learning such songs is a substitute for actually studying American history.) [2]

What about the absence of textbooks in Waldorf schools? Do you really want to deprive your children of textbooks? Consider. The Waldorf approach means that the only source of information for the kids is the Waldorf faculty. No other views will be presented, and no real authorities will be consulted. The Waldorf view, and only the Waldorf view, will be taught. Parents are often impressed by the lovely lesson books that Waldorf students create, largely by copying what their teachers have written and drawn on the chalkboard. But creating such lesson books is no substitute for reading authoritative textbooks. [3] Authorities, after all, know stuff. Experts know stuff. And good textbooks present what authorities and experts know. Omitting textbooks means omitting much of the knowledge contained in textbooks.

Note that Waldorf teachers "are not experts in any one subject — they teach all of it." Is this really what you want? Teachers who do not know any subject in depth, but who teach all subjects? This is indeed what Waldorf schools offer, and it guarantees that students will often be taught by people who are unable to take them deeply into any subject. Everything will be superficial and, to one degree or another, wrong. [4]

Waldorf teachers are often loving individuals with good intentions. They tend to revere children, and this can be extremely attractive. To understand what is going on, however, realize that the teachers' attitude toward children grows out of the Waldorf religion, Anthroposophy. According to that religion, children have recently arrived from the spirit realm, where they lived — as reincarnating beings — before coming to Earth for their latest incarnation. Thus, children bring with them more recent memories of the spirit realm than the teachers themselves possess, and they should be honored for this. Also, Waldorf teachers believe it is their karma to teach these particular children, just as it is the children's karma to be taught by these teachers. [5] Thus, a reverential attitude is developed, but it is based on extremely dubious grounds — memories of life before birth, reincarnation, karma…

If you find yourself getting excited about Waldorf schooling, pause, gather yourself, and think carefully. Waldorf schools are often fun places full of beauty and good feeling. [6] They may not, however, be very good schools — i.e., places where kids get a good education. [7] The main Waldorf objective is not to teach children but to give them spiritual assistance in the process of incarnation and in the fulfillment of karma. [8] And, of course, the teachers hope to steer children toward truth — which, in their opinion, is Anthroposophy. [9] Do you want your children to become mystical occultists — that is, junior Anthroposophists? If not, Waldorf is almost certainly the wrong place to send the precious souls who are your keeping: your children.

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A final note. The school that so wowed the blogger is a Waldorf charter school — that is to say, it is a Waldorf school that is supported by taxpayers; it is a Waldorf school that has been accepted into the public education system. [10] Taxpayers and education authorities may want to think carefully about the true nature of Waldorf education before granting charters, and public financial support, to such schools. And they may want to ask probing questions before renewing existing charters. Waldorf schools are essentially religious institutions, which have the purpose of promoting Anthroposophy. And, as I have argued, they may often provide very poor education for the kids. Is this really a good use of public funds? Is it even, in the USA, permissible under the Constitution?

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Footnotes for "Wow!"

[1] See, e.g., "Cautionary Tales".

[2] To look into the Waldorf emphasis on art, see "Magical Arts". To examine the curriculum followed in typical Waldorf schools, see "The Waldorf Curriculum" and the pages that follow it. To delve into Waldorf methods, see "Methods".

[3] See "Lesson Books”.

[4] A Waldorf teacher will often begin with a group of students who are entering first grade and stay with that group through fifth or even eighth grade, teaching most subjects at all of these grade levels. No teacher is truly qualified to do this. To look into Waldorf teacher training, see "Teacher Training".

[5] To dig into some of this, see, e.g., "Is Anthroposophy a Religion?", "Thinking Cap", "Reincarnation", and "Karma".

Do bear in mind, as I have often stressed, the sorts of teachers I am primarily discussing are true-blue Anthroposophical Waldorf teachers, those who are devoted to Rudolf Steiner and his teachings. Not every teacher in every Waldorf school is true-blue in this way. But Steiner said that all Waldorf teachers should be devout Anthroposophists, and many of his followers have seconded him on this point. So, for instance, Waldorf teacher Gilbert Childs has written this: "Waldorf teachers must be anthroposophists first and teachers second." — Gilbert Childs, STEINER EDUCATION IN THEORY AND PRACTICE (Floris Books, 1991), p. 166. Consider the quality of education your child may receive from teachers who a) believe all the nonsense in Anthroposophy, and b) consider teaching only their secondary goal.

[6] Don't get carried away with this vision, however. Waldorf schools can also be dark and frightening places. [See, e.g., “Slaps".]

[7] See, e.g., "Academic Standards at Waldorf".

[8] Here are sample statements by Waldorf teachers explaining the real purpose of Waldorf schools:  

◊ “[T]he purpose of [Waldorf] education is to help the individual fulfill his karma.” 

◊ “Waldorf education strives to create a place in which the highest beings [i.e., gods], including the Christ, can find their home....”

◊ "Waldorf education is based upon the recognition that the four bodies of the human being [the physical, etheric, astral, and ego bodies] develop and mature at different times.” 

[For more, see "Here's the Answer". For more on incarnation and the four human bodies, see "Incarnation". For more on Christ — who in Anthroposophical doctrine in one of many gods — see "Sun God”.]

[9] See, e.g., "Here's the Answer" and "Spiritual Agenda".

[10] In Britain, these are called free schools. [See “Coming Undone”.]

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Here are a few items from the Waldorf Watch News:

I.

March, 2013:

Currently featured at SteinerBooks as an "educational resource"

for Waldorf teachers:

FIVE PLAYS FOR WALDORF FESTIVALS

Richard Moore

(Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship, 2004).

◊

From SteinerBooks:

Richard Moore's collection of seasonal plays are [sic] suitable for classes 1 to 5 and feature original songs. They include two Christmas plays, an Easter play, a St John's festival play, and a Michaelmas play.... 

[http://www.steinerbooks.org/detail.html?id=9781900169189]

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Waldorf Watch Response:

Note that the "Waldorf festivals" are actually religious celebrations and the "seasonal plays" are actually religious pageants, centered on Christmas, Easter, the feast of St. John, and Michaelmas. (If you have any doubts about the religious nature of the publication in question, study the cover art.) This is appropriate because, although they generally deny it, Waldorf schools are in fact religious institutions. The chief question that may come to most readers' minds is what sort of Christianity is observed in Waldorf schools, considering that they place such emphasis on Christian festivals. The answer is: No form of Christianity that you will find in any mainstream Christian denomination.

According to Anthroposophical doctrine, Christ is not the Son of God, in the usual sense. Instead, Christ is the Sun God, the god who has been recognized in other religions as Hu or Balder or Ahura Mazda. Unlike real Christianity, Anthroposophy is polytheistic, recognizing a vast horde of gods. Among these is Christ, and Rudolf Steiner said that Christ (the Sun God) is very important to human evolution. But In Anthroposophy, Christ is only one of the many, many gods. Moreover, according to Steiner, the Biblical account of the life of Christ Jesus is badly flawed. To know what really happened to Jesus, we need to turn from the four gospels of the New Testament and consult instead "the fifth gospel" — which, it so happens, was written by Rudolf Steiner himself, relying on his marvelous powers of clairvoyance.

In reading Steiner's gospel, you will learn for instance that there were actually two Jesus children. One Jesus came from the line of Solomon, the other came from the line of Nathan. The former was actually the reincarnation of Zarathustra, while the latter was infused with the spirit of Buddha. The two Jesuses melded, and thus they became the host who was able to receive the incarnating Sun God, Christ, who inhabited the body of "Solomonic-Nathanic Jesus" for three years. [For more on such matters, see, e.g., "Was He Christian?", "Gnosis", "Rosy Cross", "Polytheism", and "Sun God".]

This is the sort "Christianity" that Rudolf Steiner's followers embrace and that they subtly offer to Waldorf students through "seasonal plays" during the "Waldorf festivals."

It is hard to believe that Rudolf Steiner's followers — including a great many Waldorf teachers — believe the things they believe. But they do.

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THE FIFTH GOSPEL - From the Akashic Record

Rudolf Steiner

(Rudolf Steiner Press, 2001).

Steiner claimed to learn the "truth" about Christ and the two Jesuses by using clairvoyance to study the Akashic Record, an invisible celestial storehouse of knowledge. The problem with this claim is that Steiner did not possess clairvoyance, since no one does, and the Akashic Record does not exist. [See "Clairvoyance" and "Akasha".] Otherwise, Steiner's story holds some points of interest.

II.

March, 2013:

From the Garden City News Online 

(New York, USA):

Waldorf School Celebrates Annual Carol Sing

On the evening of Friday, December 21st, the Waldorf School held its annual Carol Sing and Alumni Reception. Under the baton of alumna Penelope Herdt Grover ‘71 and Music Teacher Andrew Fallu, families and alumni heralded the holiday season with beautiful Christmas carols in the candle-lit [sic] gymnasium. The Carol Sing was followed by a festive holiday reception in the high school student room where close to 80 families, alumni and their families reconnected with friends and former teachers.

The Carol Sing is one of the Waldorf School’s longest and most cherished traditions — providing a peaceful interlude for individuals of all ages, backgrounds, and religions to come together. For more than 40 years, the Carol Sing has provided a gentle transition from the hectic pace of the season into the warmth of the holidays. Illuminated by the glow of candlelight, Waldorf families from the past and the present enter and leave the School’s gymnasium in silence, enhancing the peaceful mood of the evening. 

[http://www.gcnews.com/news/2013-03-01/Community/Waldorf_School_Celebrates_Annual_Carol_Sing.html]

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Waldorf Watch Response:

This rather belated report of Yuletide activities at a Waldorf school holds points of interest. Carol sings are often important annual events within a Waldorf community. They can be bonding experiences, bringing together past and present members of the community in a shared — and often beautiful — experience.

There is nothing inherently wrong with such events held in private schools. And indeed carol sings can be organized in such a way that adherents of “all...religions” may find them pleasant. We should note, however, that such events belie the usual claim, made by many Waldorf schools, that the Waldorf movement is not religious. Waldorf schools are actually, at their core, religious institutions, even if the doctrines of the Waldorf religion are kept more or less veiled. Sometimes, indeed, this point is conceded. Here is what a leading advocate of Waldorf education has said: 

"I think we owe it to our [students'] parents to let them know that the child is going to go through one religious experience after another [in a Waldorf school] ... [W]hen we deny that Waldorf schools are giving children religious experiences, we are denying the whole basis of Waldorf education." — Waldorf teacher Eugene Schwartz, "Waldorf Education — For Our Times Or Against Them?" (transcript of talk given at Sunbridge College, 1999).

The religion at the core of the Waldorf movement is Anthroposophy. Anthroposophy has ties to many other religions, and thus it can be made to seem more or less compatible with many belief systems. But it is closest to gnostic Christianity, and anyone who cannot give at least notional assent to the doctrines of gnostic Christianity may ultimately find Waldorf beliefs strange and even repellant. [See, e.g., “Gnosis”, “Was He Christian?”, and “Is Anthroposophy a Religion?”]

On an evening when, during the Christmas season, a school auditorium is darkened, with candles providing the only illumination, and religious songs are sung — on that evening, the auditorium becomes in effect a chapel, and the school brings its faith nearer to the surface than on many other occasions during the year. Bear in mind, there are different sorts of Christmas carols. Songs about reindeer and snowmen and Santa Claus generally have little or no spiritual content or meaning. But only rarely will you hear such carols sung in Waldorf schools. Far more often, the carols sung will be closely akin to hymns.

Here are excerpts from the sorts of songs generally used in Waldorf schools. I will quote from THE WALDORF SONG BOOK (Floris Books, 1992) and THE SECOND WALDORF SONG BOOK (Floris Books, 1993), both of which were compiled by Waldorf teacher Brien Masters. To keep this report concise, I will give only a few lines from each song.

FOR ALL THE SAINTS

"For all the saints who from their labours rest,

Who thee by faith before the world confest,

Thy name, O Jesus, be for ever blest."

I BIND UNTO MYSELF TODAY

(St. Patrick's Hymn)

"I bind unto myself today

The strong name of the Trinity."

UNCONQUERED HERO OF THE SKIES

"Thine aid we pray the foe to slay, Saint Michael."

ALLELUIA FOR ALL THINGS

"Of all created things, of earth and sky,

Of God and man, things lowly and high,

We sing this day with thankful heart and say,

Alleluia, alleluia."

ECCE SACERDOS

“Ecce sacerdos magnus, 

Ecce sacerdos magnus, 

Qui in diebus suis, 

Qui in diebus suis placuit Deo.”

[Translation:

 “Behold the high priest, 

Behold the great priest, 

Who in his days, 

Who in his days pleased God.”]

THE SEVEN JOYS OF MARY

“The first good joy that Mary had,

It was the joy of one;

To see her own son, Jesus Christ,

When he was first her son, 

Good man, and blessed may he be,

Both Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,

To all eternity.”

PASSIONTIDE CAROL FROM ODENWALD

“O Son, dearest Son

O dearest Jesu mine,

What will become of you on Sunday?

On Sunday I shall be king

And decked in royal robes

And strewn, strewn with palms.”

ALLELUIA

"Alleluia,

 Alleluia, 

Alleluia, 

Alleluia..."

Christmas is not the only occasion when such holy songs are sung in Waldorf schools. Here is part of a report by a former Waldorf student who went on to become a Waldorf teacher:

"The first important Christian celebration of the year was Martinmas, followed by the 'Lantern Festival' (St. Martin's Day), then the 'school fair' was usually held at the beginning of the 'Spiral of Advent' festival, then there were the four weeks of Advent leading up to Christmas, followed by Easter, St. John's festival, and so forth. When the 'Advent season' began, we spent about three-quarters of an hour each morning (during 'main lesson,' the two-hour-long period from 9 to 11) singing hymns about Mary and the coming to Earth of the Jesus child. I still know these hymns by heart. It was the same with songs about the Archangel Michael before the 'feast of St. Michael.' A small candle was lit on the class table while we sang in chorus 'Mary went through the forest' and 'Angels in our countryside,' etc. In addition, at the beginning of each of the four weeks of Advent, on Monday morning, the whole school would gather in a common area to attend the lighting of four candles placed on a large crown of pine branches that adorned the lobby of the main building. A mantra by Rudolf Steiner was then read." — Grégoire Perra, "My Life Among the Anthroposophists."

For more on such matters, including prayers recited in Waldorf Schools, see “Prayers”. For an analysis of the "Christian" nature of Anthroposophical teachings, see “Was He Christian?”

III.

June, 2011:

From The New York Times:

The courts have...delivered stinging rebukes to some states [i.e., state governments], finding that they sometimes broke the law in their efforts to cut spending ... Cases pending in [various] states could affect education spending in particular, an area where courts have been ordering states to spend more money, or to distribute it more fairly, for years. Education advocates in several states say recent budget cuts have effectively undone the gains they had made in the courts.  

[6-6-2011 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/07/us/07budgets.html]

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Waldorf Watch Response:

There has been an increasing tendency, in the United States and elsewhere, to reduce spending on traditional public schools (i.e., schools open to all children in a given region) and to divert the funds to charter or "free" schools (in effect, private schools that receive government funding). The trend has accelerated during the current recession, when taxpayers and government agencies face difficulty as they work to balance their budgets. Overall support for education is down, and the scarce resources that remain are more and more being shifted away from traditional public schools.

This is both shortsighted and unnecessary. Despite the recession, the United States — like most European nations and many other countries around the world — is rich. We can afford the things that we really want (which recently has included such things as three wars being fought simultaneously).* If Americans made up their minds to support public education, the country could easily afford both to maintain and to improve public schools.

As reported recently, up to 37% of charter schools are inferior to public schools, and another 46% are no better than public schools. 

“A 2010 study of 2,330 middle school students at charter schools in 15 states found that they performed no better [than students in regular public schools] in math and science. And a Stanford University study in 2009 concluded: ‘Nearly half of the charter schools nationwide have results that are no different from the local public school options and over a third, 37 percent, deliver learning results that are significantly worse than their students would have realized had they remained in traditional public schools.’” — Paul Farhi, “Five myths about America’s schools”, THE WASHINGTON POST, May 20, 2011. 

A report on NBC Nightly News said that only 17% of charter schools achieve better educational results than average public schools.

Diverting money to the worst charter schools is clearly a waste of money, while no benefit is gained from supporting charter schools that are merely on a par with traditional public schools. And the misuse of our financial resources is all the worse when the charter schools in question are rooted in religious occultism, as Waldorf schools are. Providing government funding to such schools is clearly a terrible idea — and, in the United States, it violates the Constitutionally mandated separation of church and state.

Voters are not always wise. Consider the caliber of some of the declared and undeclared candidates who currently seem to have a shot at winning the US Presidency. But voters should certainly wise up to the great harm — real, immediate, and lasting harm — than can be inflicted on children (the voters' own children and grandchildren) by shortchanging public education.

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* Here are some numbers, probably on the low side. ◊ Dropping a single 250-pound smart bomb costs about $30,000. An attack in which thirty such bombs are dropped costs nearly one million dollars. This is money thrown away, never to be recouped: The bombs burst, and they're gone. ◊ A single cruise missile costs about $600,000. The US and its allies opened the recent attack on Libya by launching approximately 110 cruise missiles. The cost: roughly $66,000,000 (not counting the cost of operating the ships and submarines that fired the missiles). This was money thrown away, never to be recouped: The missiles hit, burst, and they're gone. ◊ The cost of one F-22 fighter plane is $361,000,000. The planes are so expensive that the US Air Force tries not to use them — they are literally too valuable to be used for their intended purpose: fighting. ◊ The Iraq War has cost the USA something like three trillion dollars so far, while the tab for the Afghanistan war (where we really pulled in our belt and economized) has been somewhere between one and two trillion dollars, to date.

We can afford the things that we really want. We just have to decide what those things are. A child who receives a good education will, if she is spared, repay the cost of that education many times over during the course of a long, productive life.

P.S. I am not arguing that the wars we are fighting are wrong. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. But I am pointing out that these wars are vastly more expensive than giving our children the education they need and deserve. (Fifth-grade textbooks listed at Amazon average about $20 apiece. For the cost of dropping one 250-pound smart bomb, we could supply about 1,500 kids with one such book each. A box of twelve chalks costs about $4.50. For the cost of dropping one 250-pound smart bomb, we could supply about 6,666 teachers with one such box of chalk each. (For the cost of one F-22, we could buy 80,222,222 boxes of chalk or 1,805,000 textbooks. But, hey... (A nuclear-powered aircraft carrier costs umpteen billion dollars. The US has a slew of these dandy gadgets, and we're building more. I wonder if we could get by with a slightly smaller slew? Do you know how many new public schools we could build for umpteen billion dollars? In round numbers: quite a few.)))

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An Aside

The following means little —

except, perhaps, in the context of 

all the other materials we have seen

in "Schools as Churches".

At least one American Waldorf school 

has a chapel. The chapel is deemed one of the 

most important structural parts of the school.

Thus, for instance, when fire damaged the school, 

the chapel was one of the first structures rebuilt.

◊ "Rebuilding after the near-disastrous fire of three years ago is going on apace. Perhaps the most vital element which was lost in the fire, and which has now been restored, is the chapel ... [T]he chapel now has weekly Sunday evening services ... Several students spent the summer at school and lent valuable helping hands to the construction of the chapel...." — Announcement from High Mowing School in the Waldorf Clearing House Newsletter, Fall 1972, p. 1.

◊ "Sunday night Chapel is a time for students and faculty to meet together in the quiet atmosphere of the chapel to reflect on the changing world and our responsibilities towards it. Faculty, parents, alumni, students, and other community members are invited to give Chapel talks. Music and poetry are often included. Chapels [i.e., chapel services] are [held] periodically on Sunday at 6:45 p.m. A dinner precedes the Chapel gathering. Boarding students are required to attend and day students are strongly encouraged to attend." — Downloaded from the High Mowing website, Nov. 5, 2014 [http://www.highmowing.org/Page/Student-Life/Traditions].

All Waldorf schools may serve, 

at least occasionally, as churches.

And all classrooms in these schools 

may occasionally serve as chapels.

The services conducted in these spaces

may often seem benign and unobjectionable.

But they reinforce the religious character

of Waldorf education, which means they ultimately

serve to promote the Waldorf religion: 

Anthroposophy.

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[Waldorfic art, more or less. — R.R.]