Sexual Mores
in Steiner-Waldorf Schools
by Grégoire Perra
This translation was created, for the most part, mechanically — through the use of
free online translation services (DeepL, Google Translate, and Microsoft Translator).
I have made only intermittent attempts to add clarifications. — R.R.
Here are some excerpts from the articles published on my blogs, testifying to the peculiar forms that sexual mores can take in Steiner-Waldforf schools. In my opinion, this peculiarity can be attributed to the closed life of these institutions belonging to the "Anthroposophical milieu", i.e. the social universe of the aberrant Anthroposophical sect.
1) Concerning sexual mores between students:
Three excerpts from my long testimony entitled "My life Among the Anthroposophists", published many months ago on my blog:
...This harmful social atmosphere that prevailed in my sister's class deserves to be developed. Indeed, I have often encountered this kind of atmosphere in the "Grandes classes" of the Steiner-Waldorf schools, as a student but also as a teacher. In some classes, starting from the "9th" or "10th" grade, it was common for students in these schools to start engaging in problematic behaviours, such as sleeping with each other feverishly, having both heterosexual and homosexual relationships with each other. Students held parties every weekend in their parents' big houses, inviting their whole class, which tended to turn into orgies or “gang bangs". The alcohol flowed through it right after high school. Quite quickly, the consumption of illicit substances such as soft drugs appeared there. We saw them, as teachers, come back on Monday mornings completely exhausted, totally unfit for work, telling us without shame what had happened during those two days. Sometimes we also learned that this kind of sexual activity took place on the school grounds: students made love in the toilets, trying each other. Once, one of the teachers at a Steiner-Waldorf school where I worked told me that the school had to make the decision to close the room in the "high school hostel" that had been assigned to the "senior classes" because it had become, in her own words, a “fu*k room".
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In describing these facts, I do not place myself in a perspective of puritanical condemnation of adolescent sexuality. But I wonder about the psychological causes that caused these teenagers to behave in this way. Because I don't think it did them any good: by dint of exchanging their sexual partners in a small closed group of people who knew each other from the kindergarten and who had lived in the same class under the authority of the same chief teacher for sometimes eight consecutive years, like brothers and sisters, these continuous sex affairs created a kind of incestuous atmosphere. I also believe that this unleashing of their libido was not unrelated to the fact that they had been maintained, throughout their schooling, in the "small classes" and the "middle classes", in a kind of infantile atmosphere. Since they had been forced to live like little angels throughout their childhood, they turned into real demons during their adolescence! The inhibition of sexuality - and the speech around it - at the time of transition to puberty thus favored behaviors such as those I have observed. There is nothing more clumsy or ridiculous than an Anthroposophic esoteric teacher when it comes to talking to students about sexuality! Moreover, they do not do so as if this dimension of existence were unreal for them. This problem was also somewhat related to the context of mental confinement, social isolation, and sectarian aberration in these schools. The most embarrassing aspect of the students' sexual outbursts was that they also occurred during class, without any modesty. Once, as a Steiner-Waldorf teacher, I had to make a real scandal in one of my classes to explain to my students that the mention of their love afflictions had no place in the classroom, nor did I have to accept their constant caresses and other kisses in this context. They looked at me, dazed, without understanding what the problem was. They had obviously never heard such a speech before. I do not think it is a good sign that there is no longer any distinction at all between the public and private spheres. The fact that this pedagogy required almost no school work from them, since school was a kind of truancy school, only aggravated this process: having no school objectives, no other ambitions than to live in this little carefree paradise cut off from the world, living among themselves in a separate environment and outside society, Steiner-Waldorf teenagers were defeating boredom with a debauchery of sexuality, alcohol and drugs. Sometimes, outraged, Steiner-Waldorf teachers observed this state of affairs with a curiosity that showed more fascination than a desire to remedy it. When some people didn't take the opportunity to cross the red line. For my part, as a student, I had not experienced this atmosphere. I had remained among the students in my class who refused to share the other party's orgies. I stayed quite late on the side of the "little retarded angels" in whom Steiner-Waldorf's pedagogy transforms its pupils from the "middle classes". One of my classmates, who was in the same state of mind, told me that he had to wait until his thirties to have his first sexual intercourse. But this too was not without problematic consequences for me.
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This point is in line with an event that has had some media coverage. Indeed, after the accusations of sectarianism around the 2000s, the Steiner-Waldorf schools in France had recorded a spectacular drop in their enrollment and had decided to play the big game to win back public opinion. To do this, the Steiner-Waldorf School Federation brought in their most illustrious public supporters and asked them to visit one of their schools. Thus, on June 2, 2003, Albert Jacquard, Tomi Umgerer, René Barbier and Jean-Marie Pelt were propelled to lead a small group called the "pedagogical committee" by the Steiner-Waldorf Federation, whose role was to "evaluate" these schools and this pedagogy. The only "critical" assessment was that Steiner-Waldorf schools needed to make their great pedagogy better known. On this occasion, Albert Jacquard, who had noticed, in the "Grandes classes", this eccentric behavior of the Steiner-Waldorf pupils, reportedly made the following statement to one of the Federation's leaders: "The proof that you are not a cult is the manifestation of libido in your pupils. A cult would rather have a tendency to restrain it. "Years later, this Federation leader kept repeating this sentence to his colleagues and parents, considering it as a blank cheque. However, if Mr Albert Jacquard had thought a little further than the tip of his nose impressed by what he had seen, he would probably have been able to understand that, precisely, the unleashing of the libido of the Steiner-Waldorf pupils, occurring after a kind of prolonged inhibition and in harmful relational and psychological forms, had on the contrary all the symptoms of a serious sectarian deviation.
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2) Concerning sexual mores between teachers:
...During these first two years of teaching in a Steiner-Waldorf institution, even if it was only two hours a week, I began to discover the other side of the coin, that is, the harmful social relationships between teachers. Indeed, there was a promiscuity that had a very problematic impact on the work environment. By promiscuity, I mean that extramarital relationships, deception, "spousal exchanges" were commonplace within this teaching team. This often led to comical situations where one woman's ex-husband became the other's closest colleague and lived accordingly. Some deep and irreducible enmities were caused by deceptions that were known or suspected. Thus, some twenty years later, when a teacher died, I learned that an immemorial dispute between his wife and another colleague was explained by an underground extramarital story that took place between the first two at the very beginning of their careers. The wife in question had sniffed him out, so she kept criticizing the first one's teaching methods. Some particularly attractive teachers and in-laws were accumulating female conquests in the circle of their colleagues and even in that of the young mothers of the school, who succumbed one after the other. At parent meetings, this could lead to particularly embarrassing situations, such as spats between a deceived husband and the teacher in charge of... his child, under the eyes of the wife of the former and the wife of the latter, who was also the mistress of the former. Divorces were not uncommon, followed by remarriages within the limited circle of parents and teachers, so that stepfamilies were forced to live together in their workplaces, with each other's children sometimes having to accept each other in the same class. One morning, in a Steiner-Waldorf school where I worked, a colleague was looking everywhere for another teacher to beat him up, in front of the amazed students, because during the night he had slept with his wife. On another occasion, in the same school, it was a teacher who had chosen a student's parent, who was also her lover, to accompany her on a class trip: their unobtrusive relationship was obviously the subject of all the conversations among the students during this stay, even though the children of the lover in question were on the trip. Once again, it was a parent from the school, who had invested heavily in setting up a new organization of collegial decision-making methods…who began to go out with the teacher in charge of this structural reorganization, causing all his offspring and their cousins, who were also in school, to leave when his wife and his in-laws learned about it. In mentioning such facts, I am not advocating absolute rigor in terms of conjugal morals. But in no professional environment that I have known have I seen such an intermingling of relationships and such confusion of genres! All this could perhaps make you smile, but it is not healthy for an institution to operate in this way, especially when it has an educational mission. Doesn't this atmosphere of constant exchanges of sexual partners and spouses within a closed structure necessarily end up having effects that I would call "psychological inbreeding"? And can this abolition of barriers between the professional and the family not constitute a kind of intermediate step towards a more problematic and this time illegal situation where the students themselves would be concerned?
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3) Concerning sexual mores between teachers and students:
...During this year of Literary High School [a more academically advanced unit] in another Steiner-Waldorf school, I met a young girl who was going to become my girlfriend for an extended period of time. Like me, she attended Anthroposophical conferences near the school and was enthusiastic. She came from an Anthroposophic family in eastern France. Previously, she had attended Steiner-Waldorf School in Freiburg, Germany. However, she had to return to France in a hurry, as she had been plagued by repeated advances from her music teacher, which caused a scandal in the school, everyone being convinced that she was having an affair with him, a rumor maintained by the many private lessons he was giving her. She was still very shocked by this situation when she arrived in the Paris region.
Shortly after we started our love relationship, I started having problems with my mathematics teacher, who was humiliating me in class. I initially thought it was due to my poor performance, until my girlfriend informed me that this teacher had declared his love to her. He wanted a love affair with this 17-year-old girl, and his hatred for me was proportional to his passion for her. Of course, this had a very negative impact on my performance in his subject at the Baccalaureate. The very high amount of study that this school was asking for did not prevent its teachers from harming their students' results because they were unable to control their libido.
I mention this episode because it is in line with a statement made to me much later by Raymond Burlotte, the director of the Institut de Formation à la Pédagogie Steiner-Waldorf. We had a meeting with Jacques Dallé, then President of the Federation, at the Federation's premises on Gassendi Street. As I was telling him about an event similar to the one that happened between this math teacher and my girlfriend, Raymond Burlotte told me: "We know very well that this kind of thing happens frequently in our schools. What we absolutely must avoid is to deny them!” To which Jacques Dallé added: "When such a compromising event occurs in a Waldorf school, it is necessary to quickly counter the news by spreading a lie that includes an element of truth. The element of truth contained in what is false will accredit the whole in the eyes of all.”
Excerpt from my article, "Un secret de polichinelle":
In my article published on the UNADFI website, I give as an example of a dubious proximity between teachers and students in Steiner-Waldorf schools — the case of an illicit relationship between a young teacher and an underage student, a relationship that I witnessed when I was a teacher in one of these institutions:
For example, when I was teaching in one of these schools, I witnessed an illicit relationship between a teacher and a Grade 12 student. They had started dating when the student was in Grade 10 (Third) and this arrangement continued until Grade 12 (First or Terminal). All the school's class teachers, some of whom were members of the School Management Committee, were aware of this. How could they have ignored it, since this teacher and this student had ended up living together in the same apartment. When this teacher left school after obtaining his certification to teach elsewhere, all the teachers in the upper classes, except one who probably wanted to remain cautious but who knew like the others what it was like, came to a small party in this apartment. Between teachers and students, everyone pretended to ignore or hide what was a secret.
In the context of this article, whose purpose was to give a general picture of the functioning of these schools, I could not dwell on this matter. However, the matter deserves to be told in detail. Not to throw the stone at a teacher, or even a particular school, but to describe how far those who have become entangled in a strategy of concealment can get stuck.
Indeed, the story of this student and this young teacher from a Steiner-Waldorf school, as well as the pedagogical team that has been complicit for years in this illicit relationship, has in some respects both comic and lamentable features. I will tell it as it was transmitted to me by the students themselves, as well as by the teachers, who had put me in confidence, thus completing my personal observations:
Their attachment began during a class trip in 9th class (3rd), with a letter that the girl, who was not shy, addressed to her teacher. The letter began as follows:
"I am a student. Would you be willing to go out with a student?"
Then the letter ended with a request for an answer, indicating a stone in the garden, under which the young teacher could leave his letter. His first answer was no.
Unfortunately, this reply was found by other students and the story caused a sensation throughout the class, so it was necessary to organize a plenary meeting, in the presence of the two accompanying teachers, to demand that the gossip stop.
The story could have ended there. But the girl made advances again and the teacher eventually gave in to her. He immediately went to talk to his colleague, the one who had accompanied him on the school trip. When she learned of this relationship, her only reaction was to tell him:
"Oh, how jealous I am!"
It is not clear whether this teacher's jealousy was about her colleague's love story, or about the colleague himself. Probably a little bit of both. Then the young teacher went to talk to a member of the school administration (the college of teachers), who was responsible for supervising the "grandes classes" (the Lycée). He did nothing, kept the information to himself and, to my knowledge, did not officially forward it to the college of teachers, choosing to "cover" his colleague.
However, like most members of the "Collège des Grandes Classes", part of the school was quickly informed, as were the members of the college of teachers who had teenagers attending the Lycée, who constantly passed on all this information to them.
In 11th class (1st), this improper story almost broke out publicly. Indeed, some afternoons, the young teacher and the young girl used to meet in a large park. Since the latter was located at a certain distance from the school, the "lovers" thought they could kiss each other copiously without fear of being discovered. This was without considering the fact that, in this high school, many students were playing hooky, and that one of them found himself surprising them. The event then made the rounds of the students of the grand classes:
"Doe saw Mr. G. and Mr. in X's park going out together!"
As soon as they were alerted, the "senior class" team [of teachers] met and decided on the strategy to be followed. The students were called together and a "denial" was given to them, while the student who had provided the information was dismissed from the school due, officially, to his absenteeism, which until then had not bothered anyone.
The following year, during the trip to the 12th grade (Terminale), the situation became even more difficult to manage. Indeed, the young teacher was part of the team responsible for accompanying the class on the trip to a foreign country, which traditionally took place that year. The problem was as follows:
• the other teacher, who was accompanying the class, was aware of this relationship, but absolutely wanted no one to realize that she was aware, because she was part of the school's "Collège de Direction" (then called "Collège Interne");
• one part of the class was aware of it, but the other part was not;
• the two "lovers" had a desire to satisfy their increasingly compelling sexual desires, which pushed them, for example, to find themselves in the changing rooms of the pool, or in a common room at night.
The girl had to wait until all her classmates had fallen asleep to leave the dormitory and join her lover in his room, then come back quietly, before the students woke up and noticed her absence. During all this affair, she was exhausted, no longer showing any interest in the cultural elements of the city she was visiting (a great European cultural capital). One part of the class also had to spend a lot of energy and a lot of ingenuity to hide from the other part (who didn't know it) the relationship that was taking place, almost under their noses. While the accompanist had to adopt a pose of extreme naiveté to pretend not to see everything that was happening in her presence.
I think I can say that this love story greatly disrupted the girl's schooling, who was thinking only of this affair and of ways to continue to hide something whose rumour was growing day by day. To preserve her and do what they thought was helping her, all the teachers of the grandes classes gave her marks above her real level, including her lover, who was teaching a key subject in her curriculum. Moreover, when it happened that the latter managed to give his lover a score below the average, she would take revenge in private by imposing abstinence on him for a few days, openly pouting at him. His temperament, immersed in a situation that was inherently confusing, no longer allowed him to make the distinction between school and private life.
It was only on the day the student's schooling ended that the Lycée teachers decided to organize a party at the home of the two lovers, who had therefore rented an apartment together for two years, with the consent of her parents. I was there. Indeed, for the entire Lycée teaching team, this couple had become their "protégés", and no one saw any ethical or moral problems in this regard.
Through this story, we see, then, how in a Steiner-Waldorf school, strategies of concealment can be put in place where one knowingly lies to others, or lies to oneself and becomes an accomplice to a quasi-institutionalized lie, whether one is a teacher or a student. And even more seriously, how do we create an atmosphere and a state of mind so far removed from the rules of normal life that no one sees the ethical problems posed by certain behaviours that, normally, should be reprehensible or even condemned by the law. In my opinion, the habit of lying and concealment, which is specific to Steiner-Waldorf schools and Anthroposophy, is not unrelated to what happened and how events unfolded: living permanently with the intention to hide [as school's] Anthroposophy [from outsiders] also ends up manifesting itself in all other areas and circumstances of life.
An extract from my Report on the Perceval School in Chatou in 2007:
...Even more seriously, I soon realized that, in this atmosphere of generalized promiscuity, disturbing slippages were tolerated and were even part of local folklore. First of all, small things that seemed harmless but difficult to imagine in other school environments: it was not uncommon for some teachers to go to a café with students to chat together after school over a drink, or for teachers to invite students to come with them to do their shopping. I also remember a teacher handing out a postcard to high school students from her latest theatrical creation entitled "The Sea", where she was seen in a bathing suit, without any embarrassment. Yet this act was tantamount to handing out pictures of her in her underwear, without any reflection on the disturbance she could cause to growing teenagers contemplating their young teacher's disrobed body. I soon learned of another teacher who went weekly with her students to gay and lesbian bars in the capital and invited some of them to sleep at her place if they had trouble getting home. As another example, I realized that some teachers did not hesitate to use the most familiar language with their students, even releasing themselves into incessant obscenities that went so far as to shock some of the children, who did not have the same degree of sexual fulfillment and therefore suffered from the gap with the more "mature" part of the class, who were likely to taste such complicity. During my four years of teaching in Perceval, I even learned of a case of harassment of a teacher involving a student for nearly two years, swept under the rug — despite repeated complaints from the student — for reasons of recruitment difficulties and because of [the teacher's] friendship with a member of the college of teachers, guaranteeing his charitableness. However, the girl had gone so far as to complain openly to the director, in vain. She complained in particular that during sports classes, this teacher continually sent her snapshots magnifying her legs or other parts of her body. Another case that was part of local folklore was that of a teacher living with a student whom he had been dating since the "10th" grade. It was well known to all teachers, including members of the college of teachers, that this teacher and this student joined together every recess in the science room to make love, without anyone raising any objections. No one at school was unaware of their relationship, nor of the fact that they even lived together, since it was she who came to pick him up every week by car after faculty meetings. Moreover, all the teachers of the grandes classes, including a member of the college of teachers, had come to celebrate at their home on the occasion of his departure [for a different job]. I remember very well a teacher, at the very beginning of my time in Perceval, talking about this particular subject and adding that here teacher-student relationships "have never been deplored!" This was confirmed to me by the attitude of F.G. who, although he had long known certain things of this kind, never made the slightest objection. When I told him about these facts when I left, he simply told me that there was no problem for him, since the teachers in question had come to talk to him about it.
If I want to form an overall image of the atmosphere that characterized the grand classes of Perceval today, I would like to say that it was a kind of permanent holiday camp. As in summer camps, there was little work done (by students and teachers alike), there were always little private stories that circulated through the community, there was no longer a clear separation between teenagers and adults.
This situation of indulgence and permissiveness had, in my opinion, consequences generally in the behavior of students. Thus, I quickly noticed the frankly indecent way in which many students dressed and behaved in class, despite internal rules that were nothing more than vast hypocrisy and that no teacher really sought to enforce: the indecency of some was shocking, their manifest indecency could no longer even be qualified as provocation, but represented a certain mode of being, a strange relationship to their own bodies and to others. In class, it was common to witness their kisses and erotic caresses, both homosexual and heterosexual. In general, I noticed that these students no longer knew how to make a distinction between private life and public space, bringing their problems as couples into class, sometimes even solving them in front of everyone, interrupting the teacher without any embarrassment. I remember having to fight to prevent the students in a class from starting to decorate their classrooms as if they were their own, with dubious posters. I barely managed to remove the condoms that the students had glued all around the blackboard before a 12th grade parents' meeting. It was even known to some teachers that students in a particular class sometimes made love in the toilets during breaks, or at night taking advantage of the fact that they possessed the keys to the school, entered and penetrated each other, ravaging their souls. I remember a teacher smiling about the fact that one year the room that was then used as a storage space had become a "fu*k room". Some teachers pretended to be indignant about it from time to time, but without doing anything serious about it. Indeed, tackling this problem would have been the same as tackling the dilemma of the general atmosphere of the school. In my opinion, despite the worrying nature of these behaviors, the school as a whole closed its eyes, let it go, and did not want to question the causes of all this — or some even bragged about it, like F.G., stating without hesitation that the overflow of students' libido proved that the school was not sectarian, referring to allegations of sectarianism apparently made by outsiders. However, in four years of teaching in Perceval, I met only one class whose sexual behaviors were almost healthy.
An excerpt from my article: "A danger inherent in Steiner-Waldorf schools: teachers or madmen":
The other example I would like to mention in this article occurred in the same school a few years earlier. This institution was looking for an external speaker for the "11th class" theatre period ... We therefore sought, among the parents of the students, a professional in the performing arts to provide timely assistance, for three weeks, with the project of producing a dramatic work. In accordance with the logic of caution in the recruitment process systematically implemented in Steiner-Waldorf schools, aimed first and foremost at finding sympathetic recruits from within the Anthroposophical community, a search was therefore carried out among personalities close to the school. A candidate was identified. He was an actor, married, and had enrolled his two children in the school recently. He seemed to be someone in the drama business, able to bring that touch of professionalism that the school wanted its students to benefit from. The fact that he sometimes stopped, in the middle of a walkway, to communicate with the forces of nature, or that he spoke to the "spirits of the elements" [i.e., nature spirits], did not worry anyone: these forces and spirits are realities for Steiner-Waldorf teachers. So he was hired. But after the three weeks of the internship in question, the school was stymied. Indeed, the class's lead teacher had been contacted by the parents of a student, absolutely furious. They had just met the man in question, whom their 16-year-old daughter wanted to introduce to them. She had told them that he was "the man of her life" and admitted that they had gone out together during the theatre workshop, and things had gone quite far. The class leader took the matter to the school's senior class council, which decided to cover up the incident, "in the interest of everyone". The other authorities of the school were not officially informed, in accordance with the logic of partitioning information into watertight compartments set up in the Steiner-Waldorf schools. Using this expression, "in the interest of everyone", the class leader probably meant protecting the interest of the man, who was married, the interest of the minor girl, who agreed to abandon this relationship, but also and perhaps above all the interest of the school, which should have made a report.
An excerpt from the testimony of H, a former Steiner-Waldorf student:
Regarding the seventh passage of Mr. Grégoire Perra's PDF document, which was considered defamatory by the Federation of Steiner-Wadorf Schools, I would like to be heard in order to discuss the following facts:
With regard to the questionable closeness of pupils and teachers mentioned by Mr Perra in his article, I can mention that teachers were indeed moving outside their roles as teachers and pupils outside their roles as pupils. For example: A teacher asked me to inform him regularly about everything concerning the private lives of the students in my class. Or that teachers often asked for psychological aspects of our intimate lives to be told, as if these teachers were psychologists. I can also tell that teachers often interfere with the love lives of students, taking sides, intervening, etc.
I can also testify that in this school, everyone knew about the relationship between the physics-and-chemistry teacher and one of his students. There was a rumor that the student in question would join him at lunchtime in the science room to have sex with him.
I can also testify to another relationship between a teacher and several students, which was known to everyone, namely the philosophy teacher and a student in the two-year class above mine, and then with a student in my class.
I can also testify to a romantic affair between the economics teacher and a student in my class. The teacher in question had made advances to her.
I can relate the case of a teacher who openly flirted with some students, and invited them to her home to "enjoy her pool".
I can testify to the attitude of the sports teacher who openly flirted with some of his students and even sent them text messages.
I can also tell you that some teachers (of French, eurythmy and history-geography) systematically took my classmates to their homes as babysitters.
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4) Concerning sexual mores between teachers and young children:
An excerpt from "My Life Among the Anthroposophists: A Moving Testimony":
In this regard, I must also tell you about an event that Maria [Perra's girlfriend] and I experienced together. It was important because it remained in both our memories and allowed us to touch with our fingers the magnitude of the reality we were trying to understand. It was from that moment, I think, that the blinders definitely fell from our eyes and that we both perceived the true nature of these [Steiner-Waldorf] institutions. We were contacted by a mother who claimed that her children had been raped while they were in the kindergarten at a [Steiner-Waldorf] school in which Maria had worked. The mother had brought the matter before the courts a few months after discovering what allegedly happened, but the investigation only resulted in a dismissal of the charges. For my part, there was no question of taking over the case or replacing the work of the police with my own efforts. And this is true for subsequent instances. I cannot substitute myself for a judicial procedure, nor can I dispute its conclusions, whatever they may be. I am not an investigator, nor a private detective in charge of investigating Steiner-Waldorf schools. I mention this and other instances because they help me to make sense of things as I reflect upon my experiences in Steiner-Waldorf schools and Anthroposophy. I only report them because they have had a significant impact on my view of things, but I am not trying to accuse anyone or relitigate a case that has been closed. I mention this meeting with this mother because of the shocking aspects it raised for me and Maria, not to pass judgment on the reality of her allegations.
Indeed, the overwhelming nature of this mother's words was due to the fact that the supposed event, evoked as a fact by this mother, was known to Maria and me. However, we had each experienced it from the other side, so to speak, from the point of view we had when we were still part of the Anthroposophical sect. We were deeply struck to discover how the versions we were provided when we belonged to the Anthroposophical environment were very different from the one now presented to us by this grieving mother. Speaking for myself, it was an Anthroposophic doctor friend, close to school, who told me about it:
"By the way, Grégoire," he said to me one day in June 2007, while we were walking around the school, "did you know that there were accusations of pedophilia in the kindergarten? A mother accuses Mr. Doe of having sodomized her two children, as well as others in his group, during nap time. The school asked me informally to examine the children. I was indeed able to see that children in one of the two groups all had suspicious redness on their anuses. But I preferred to attribute this to a generalized infection ... You understand, poor Mr. Doe is close to retirement. It must be very hard for him to be accused in this way."
What shocked me when I heard about this event again, almost six years later, was the fact that it had seemed to me to be of absolutely minor importance at the time. No doubt the almost playful tone used by my friend at the time had contributed to me not perceiving how serious it could be. In retrospect, I believe that this is one of the techniques used by Anthroposophists in similar cases: the information is not denied (probably because it is not possible to do otherwise), but it is transmitted in terms and in a tone that deflects anyone's attention. This allows the case to be "closed" in people's consciences as soon as it is known. As for Maria, the mother's words evoked other memories:
"I remember this story," she said to me. "We often talked about it at the time, in teachers' meetings. We were told this story when we were assured that this mother was crazy and made unfounded accusations. One of the teachers, a member of the School of Spiritual Science [at the Anthroposophical headquarters], kept saying that we had nothing to fear, because the parents would never dare to file a complaint. You realize my own son was in that kindergarten that year, but in the other group! We were told that an internal investigation had concluded that the event could not have taken place in the school, since the children were always under the supervision of the kindergarten, even during naps. But we never considered that she [the teacher who reassured us] could be Mr. Doe's accomplice! Indeed, this kindergarten is so isolated within the school that even the cooks who bring the meal are not allowed to enter it. They must leave the cart in front of the door and leave. When I worked there myself, I felt a terrible sense of isolation, alone all day with the children, without any colleagues. We are one of the only Steiner-Waldorf institutions in France that stubbornly refuses any agreement with the PMA [a neonatal service], so that their services do not come to us. When I think about it, I find it very suspicious and I realize that it is very dangerous. Because the incidents in question could very well have happened. I'm in a good position to know that!"
In front of the mother who, years later, told us her version, in the flower garden of her house, we felt the horror rising to our throats. One of her ten-year-old children, who was playing nearby, had lost all her hair. "A delayed psychological shock," the mother said. When I asked her about the reasons why, at the time, she had not immediately filed a complaint, she gave me the following explanation:
"At that time, we felt at odds with society. We did not trust the state services. One night, I was bathing one of my children. I discovered the rash on her anus and around it. Her twin brother spontaneously said, laughing, that it was because the bearded man's wiener had not come out. I then made a serious mistake, for which I will blame myself all my life. My immediate reflex was not to contact the police, but to go and talk to one of the school's kindergarten teachers about it. She listened to me, asked me if we had talked to anyone else about it, and then recommended that I continue to remain silent until she contacted them again. After a week, when we had no word from her, we wrote a registered letter to the director of the school. He immediately received us with a big smile and promised us that everything would be done to discover the truth. But their investigation concluded that the event could not have taken place at the school. When we protested, they then tried to scare us by telling us that pedophilia often took place within families and that we would be the prime suspects if we persisted in our accusations. That's why it took us six months to file our complaint. But by then it was far too late."
[I asked her] "But why did you go to your children's kindergarten first to talk about it rather than go directly to the police? Do you realize the mistake you made? Can you explain it today?"
"There were then very strong ties between me and our children's [female] teacher. Initially, the teacher was like a mother to me. The teacher reminded me of my mother. This phenomenon was caused by subtle things, such as the way the teacher smiled at us or shook our hands with warmth. I was completely fascinated by that woman!"
At one point, I asked to go to their bathroom. I was amazed to discover Weleda products [i.e., Anthroposophical cosmetics and medicines] in large quantities. I was thinking to myself inside, "How can she continue to buy products that come from this group of people she thinks have committed such acts on her children?!"
By asking her more questions, I understood why. To try to heal from this terrible wound, the mother turned to psychics, or mesmerists. Her way of thinking was strongly marked by a distinct mysticism. She had a good understanding of the nature of the school where she had put her children, but not of the links that united this institution to the entire New Age movement. She did not realize that this spiritualist current was also responsible for the state of credulity in which she had found herself. She did not see that it had made her react in such an inappropriate way, making her unable to protect her own children as she should have. She did not understand that there is an obvious connection between all the components of this current and what she believes happened to their children. Because Weleda products, Steiner-Waldorf schools, possible devirgances, new-age mentality and Anthroposophy are actually part of the same whole, which makes tragedies like this one possible.
The mother gave us access to all the files she had in her possession. Maria then discovered with astonishment that some of the documents sent to the family had been signed by one of her colleagues who, at the time, had no official management position in the institution:
"That's how it works with them," she said. "Some teachers are notoriously incompetent. But nothing is ever done against them, despite all the possible protests, while others are fired now when some parents lift a finger. The impunity [of some] is explained by the fact that they have sometimes agreed to get up to their necks in certain cases to protect their school. What is also incredible is that it is very difficult to know the facts with precision. At the time, I was a member of the school's board of directors. However, I was never shown the documents I see today in front of me! And I have never been aware of any of the crucial elements either. I think that, in fact, they have managed to give the different circles of the school truncated, or contradictory, versions. There was a version for parents, another for teachers of the "grandes classes", another for those of the "small and medium classes", another for the college of teachers, etc. As I was part of the college of teachers and two other councils, several versions were sent to me. But when I wanted to take them into account and compare them with each other, all this seemed so confusing to me that I gave up trying to understand. I lost interest in the case, when I shouldn't have. I don't know exactly who in the school is in charge of all this, but it's incredibly well organized!"
In view of what has just been mentioned, we may legitimately ask ourselves the question of the place of pedophile temptation in Steiner-Waldorf schools. Again, it is not a question of substituting myself for the work of an investigator or judge, but of questioning the psychological foundations of many hypothetical facts of which I have personal knowledge. Indeed, rumours of prohibited relations between teachers and minors are frequent in Steiner-Waldorf schools. But we only know them by being close to them. Are they proven? It is up to the courts to decide, if they have the opportunity to do so. But to do so would require breaking through a particularly thick wall of silence and confusion. The only thing I can say is that it seems to me that the pedophile temptation and the risk of suicide are very high in Steiner-Waldorf schools. Not that all Steiner-Waldorf teachers would be potentially paedophiles! That is absolutely not what I mean. Some are perfectly impervious to this temptation. But others are not. In my opinion, these are less impervious first of all because of Anthroposophical pedagogical doctrine, which has a kind of fantasized vision of children, conceived as "pure" and "angelic" beings, coming directly from the "spiritual worlds". Secondly, they are less impervious because some teachers do not always have the moral structure that would allow them to resist the creation, in these schools, of a dubious, knowingly promoted proximity between teachers and students, in order [for the teachers to gain] a psychological hold on the students. Some teachers thus go very far in terms of physical proximity to the children for whom they are responsible. Maria remembered a highly respected classroom teacher, affectionately known as the "cluster man", because he always had 6 to 8 children literally hanging around his neck and kissing him during recess. This man was presented as the very model of the perfect Steiner-Waldorf teacher. As such, he performed not only at forums of the Rudolf Steiner Institute, but also at public conferences, where he always made a strong impression. Finally, when pedophiliac events occur, Steiner-Waldorf teachers think first and foremost about protecting their institution rather than the children, which means quickly stifling business. I will always remember the last words of this mother, forever broken by pain and guilt:
"Years later, when everything was lost and none of our legal procedures had been successful, as I passed in front of the headquarters of the Steiner-Waldorf Schools Federation, I came in and asked to speak to the President. He listened to me when I told him our story and then, when I asked him why he had never bothered to answer my many letters, he looked at me in silence, at length, without opening his mouth, until I left."
—————————
Read also:
Les fantasmes ambigus des professeurs Steiner-Waldorf pour leurs élèves {The ambiguous fantasies of Steiner-Waldorf teachers for their students}
Les multiples crimes sexuels de l’école Steiner-Waldorf de Green Meadow enfin démasqués {The multiple sexual crimes of the Steiner-Waldorf school in Green Meadow finally exposed}
CENTRAL QUESTIONS?
Can we trust Grégoire Perra? Should we believe him?
As is to be expected, many Anthroposophists and their allies say the answer, most definitely, is "No!" They challenge Perra's descriptions of Waldorf schools, his conclusions about both Anthroposophy and Waldorf, and his statements about his own life. They call him a liar.
Perra, of course, says the opposite. While not claiming to have led a blameless life, he asserts that he has told the truth to the very best of his ability.
Whom should we believe?
Consider the termination of Perra's career as a Waldorf teacher. Did Perra resign, or was he fired? And if he was fired, was it because he was guilty of sexual misconduct? Perra acknowledges that he and one his students had a romantic relationship, and he admits that another student accused him of sexual molestation — inappropriate touching. He takes responsibility for his conduct. He denies, however, that he abused either of these young women, or anyone else. How should we weigh all this? Whom should we believe? And what bearing does this have on our evaluation of Perra's judgments about Anthroposophy and Waldorf education?
To read a fierce assault on Perra, see Martin Bernard's "L’imposture Grégoire Perra" {The Impostor Grégoire Perra}. Written by an avowed friend of Anthroposophy, it is a withering portrait of Perra.
◊
Trying to ascertain how someone behaved years ago — and, from an American perspective, far away — may be impossible. We are trying to peer through a swirling cloud of memories, accusations, denials, and counter-claims — a cloud that may well be impenetrable.
But surely we can agree to this: Grégoire Perra is imperfect. He has made mistakes. He has, on at least some occasions, behaved shamefully.*
We can say these things because the same statements apply every human being. We are all guilty, to some degree, in some manner. We are all imperfect.
Perra's faults do not compel us to reject out of hand everything he has written about Anthroposophy and Waldorf. (If we must reject all of his statements because he has faults, then we must reject everyone else's statements for the same reason.) If Perra's testimony and conclusions are consistent with what at least some other observers have said, and if his writings are well documented, and if he writes with evident thoughtfulness — then he deserves a hearing.
We must not accept Grégoire Perra's statements unquestioningly, but we also must not reject them as beyond the pale. A faulty human may tell us important truths. Indeed, we have never heard truths from anyone except faulty humans.
— Roger Rawlings
* It is worth remembering that when someone who was raised in Waldorf/Anthroposophical communities has problems, at least some of those problems can probably be traced to those communities.
From The Waldorf Watch News,
May 4, 2020
SEX & AN APOLOGY —
CHARGES & DENIALS
Anthroposophists in France have been gunning for Grégoire Perra. A former Waldorf student who became a Waldorf teacher, Perra subsequently broke away from the Waldorf movement — he is now a prominent critic of Waldorf education and its ideological foundation, Anthroposophy. [1] In retaliation for his criticisms, Anthroposophists have counterattacked in numerous ways, such as filing a series of lawsuits accusing Perra of defamation. [2]
Arguing that Perra is morally debased, some of his opponents cite a particular piece of evidence: a letter he wrote years ago, in which he apparently confesses to sexually molesting a young woman. This letter was reproduced, for instance, by pro-Anthroposophical writer Martin Bernard in a scathing article he published in 2019: "L'imposture Grégoire Perra" {The Impostor Grégoire Perra}. [3]
Perra now says writing the letter was the greatest mistake of his life. He says he wrote it under duress, in a period of great stress and emotional turmoil. He contends that the situation for which he apologized was far more complex than his adversaries claim. Most importantly, he categorically denies that he has ever sexually molested anyone, including the young woman to whom he addressed his letter. [4]
Recently at the Waldorf Critics discussion website [5], moderator dan Dugan recently posted a link to Martin Bernard's article. [6] Former Waldorf parent Margaret Sachs then posted the following brief essay:
In 2017, the Federation of Steiner Waldorf Schools in France announced in an internal newsletter that it was focusing on the preparation of a national communication plan and a response to Grégoire Perra's attacks. The newsletter stated that “Several companies have already been consulted; others are preparing an offer to accompany us in this reflection, bringing their professionalism.” This resulted in the hiring of Martin Bernard, who wrote the article “L’imposture Grégoire Perra” and promoted it on social media.
As usual, Waldorf education was defended in the article by references to allegedly independent studies, none of which actually were independent. Unfortunately, Anthroposophists in Europe appear to have infiltrated the academic world, giving a false sense of legitimacy to Waldorf studies. It was frustrating for me in a back-and-forth discussion with Bernard that by the time I had finished checking out a slew of additional studies he had cited and found every one of them to be linked to Anthroposophists, the discussion thread at that particular site had been closed down.
Bernard’s cheerleader on social media was a person I won’t name here but who ended up being blocked by a number of people because of his name-calling and absurd claims and accusations. I chose not to block him because I knew his behavior was detrimental to his own cause. In my case, in response to my tweeting information at a Holocaust memorial site about Anthroposophists who aided and abetted the atrocities of Nazism in World War II, he called me a “monster” and illogically claimed that I hate Jews. [7]
Unfortunately, more serious issues were involved in the effort to discredit and intimidate Grégoire. He has been the target of insults, harassment, and threats, some of them violent. Some of the harassment he has told me about is similar to what Scientology does to some of its former members.
I’m not the only former Waldorf parent to have witnessed how manipulative lies and rumors in a Waldorf school can create a community that believes the innocent to be guilty and the guilty to be victims. This type of behavior, however, is even more dangerous when it becomes part of a larger plan to silence a critic like Grégoire. In an article on his blog, he wrote, “… some students, even within the Steiner-Waldorf schools and during their schooling, seem to have been set up against me by their teachers. For example, I could cite the case of a pupil who attended a Steiner-Waldorf school in the Paris region who recently began to make public statements against me which, if he had persisted, would have led to a criminal conviction. On enquiry, it was about a person [8] who was visibly at odds with society and who had been convicted by the courts for criminal behavior in the context of demonstrations against the labor law. The reading of his blog, where he talks about his conviction, reveals well the type of product that can come out of the Steiner-Waldorf schools: disconnected from himself, in total loss of social references, scorning laws and institutions, hovering in a delirious poetic and mystical sphere that he confuses with creativity, not understanding at all the conviction he was sentenced to [9], etc. Does the Federation not see the risks it is taking with this strategy of rumor in which even the pupils of its educational institutions are sometimes involved, some of whom are socially maladjusted and psychically unbalanced? Using teenagers who do not yet have a sense of reality to propagandize the Steiner-Waldorf schools [10] and stir up fierce hatred towards one of its detractors is a serious act that the Federation of Steiner-Waldorf Schools should absolutely prohibit in its schools.” https://veritesteiner.wordpress.com/2017/06/26/la-federation-des-ecoles-steiner-waldorf-prepare-un-vaste-plan-de-communication-contre-gregoire-perra/?fbclid=IwAR2uJiOW51KQEnqhWxig0M-_2fXFh1iQF9PKegLfx9LBwXFdqVGGxBWAvBo
As for Anthroposophists publishing Grégoire’s apology letter to a student, Grégoire has told me “Yes, I wrote this letter, but I never made any sexual aggression on this girl, or any aggression at all. The trials of 2013 and 2019 [11] told about this letter and the judges (twice !) said that there is no relation between this event and my critical work about anthroposophy and Steiner schools. The court said very clearly that my work is without anger or spirit of revenge. The purpose of Martin Bernard is to say the contrary, which is against two court decisions [12].” My family would have welcomed such a letter from the Waldorf teacher who groped our daughter. An apology was promised but never given. Instead, we ended up receiving the same atrocious treatment other Waldorf school victims have experienced. Grégoire’s apology seems to me to have been an anomaly in the world of Anthroposophy and was, in my opinion, heartfelt and sincere.
What Anthroposophists fail to recognize is that any wrongdoing on Grégoire’s part occurred while he was an Anthroposophist. I am reminded of Mike Rinder, a former senior executive of the Church of Scientology. [13] As a Scientologist, he was heavily involved in activities that were harmful to others. After seeing the light and leaving Scientology, he has worked hard to expose the truth about the cult and to help other former members. In doing so, he has become an invaluable Scientology critic, appreciated and respected not only by TV audiences but by people he once harmed. Watching him as Leah Remini’s co-host in the TV series Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath [14], it was sometimes easy to see the pain and guilt in his face when he was in friendly conversation with people he had previously mistreated. Many former cult members have to deal with the guilt of what they did while under the influence of cult indoctrination. Recovery is a long road for them, which in most cases requires the help of a therapist.
Fortunately, in France, a growing number of journalists and organizations are now active in exposing the truth about Waldorf education, Anthroposophical medicine, and other Anthroposophic activities. Maybe the genie is out of the bottle.
-Margaret [15]
To read English translations of some of Perra's writings, see, e.g., "He Went to Waldorf", "My Life Among the Anthroposophists", "Sexual Mores in Steiner-Waldorf Schools", and, "Mistreating Kids Lovingly".
Waldorf Watch Footnotes
[1] See Perra's websites La Vérité sur les écoles Steiner-Waldorf {The Truth About Steiner-Waldorf Schools} and Blog de Grégoire Perra {Grégoire' Perra's Blog}.
[2] See "Grégoire Perra".
[3] See https://www.redacteur-independant.ch/2019/07/11/limposture-gregoire-perra/?fbclid=IwAR0-gARzvBuIpZrNnU5oE3zpx4fhn5Z2gFB9_jMHPqiOw5yZa1fmbtWe11M.
[4] See the sections "A Slightly Odd and Potentially Dangerous Friend" and "The Whole Truth" in "My Life Among the Anthrposophists, Part 2".
[5] See https://groups.io/g/waldorf-critics.
[6] See https://groups.io/g/waldorf-critics/message/32036.
[7] Margaret Sachs has written in opposition to anti-Semitism. Her husband is Jewish. She has said that her children consider themselves to be half-Jewish.
[8] I.e., the former Waldorf pupil who was maligning Perra.
[9] I.e., the infraction for which he was sentenced.
[10] I.e., propagandize on their behalf.
[11] These were trials resulting from lawsuits brought against Perra by representatives of the Waldorf/Anthroposophical movements. He won both trials. [For his detailed account of the 2013 trial, see "My Life Among the Anthrposophists, Part 3". The results of the 2019 trial are currently on appeal.]
[12] I.e., the proposition advanced by Bernard and others — that Perra has acted out of anger and a desire for revenge — has twice been rejected by French courts.
[13] Rinder now has an anti-Scientology blog: https://www.mikerindersblog.org.
[14] See https://www.aetv.com/shows/leah-remini-scientology-and-the-aftermath.
[15] See https://groups.io/g/waldorf-critics/message/32037.
— R.R.