One of the pillars upon which Anthroposophy is built is the notion of karma and with it, reincarnation. It is the child’s karma to be connected with their Waldorf teacher, and the children in their classroom.
Bullying cannot happen in Waldorf schools because absolutely NOTHING is considered “bullying”. Teachers consider any unpleasant experiences a child has in Waldorf school as the child’s KARMA. The child will be stronger for all the bullying they receive at the hands of their classmates (and sometimes their own teachers).
“In the autumn we experienced the death of a member’s child, a child seven years of age. The death of this child occurred in a strange way. He was a good boy, mentally very much alive already within the limits set for a seven-year-old; a good, well-behaved and mentally active child. He came to die because he happened to be on the very spot where a furniture van overturned, crushing the boy so that he died of suffocation. This was a spot where probably no van went past before nor will go past again, but one did pass just that moment. It is also possible to show in an outer way that all kinds of circumstances caused the child to be in that place at the time the van overturned, circumstances considered chance if the materialistic view is taken … Studying the case in the light of spiritual science and of karma it will be seen to demonstrate very clearly that external logic, quite properly used in external life, proves flimsy in this case and does not apply … The karma of this child was such that the ego, to put it bluntly, had ordered the van and the van overturned to fulfill the child’s karma.” —
Rudolf Steiner, THE DESTINIES OF INDIVIDUALS AND OF NATIONS (SteinerBooks, 1987), pp. 125-126.
So, karma explains ANY unfortunate circumstances that happen to children in Waldorf schools. What’s a little bullying, when something powerful enough to require a child’s DEATH is at work in these children?
Below, Master Waldorf teacher Eugene Schwartz explains how little bullying means to Waldorf teachers in a video mocking parent complaints regarding bullying! It sounds like he’s serious up until the end.
Because bullying is considered by Waldorf teachers to be part of a child’s karma, and therefore something the child must work through on their own, children are FAR MORE LIKELY to suffer bullying at a Waldorf school than in ordinary school environments where laws against bullying are enforced and where common sense (and not karma) prevails. Waldorf teachers may not even mention to parents that their child is suffering bullying or humiliation on a daily basis.
“Claire McConnell, who apologized in a letter June 24, was accused of strapping one child into a chair with a leather belt, tying the hands of others and taping shut the mouths of some elementary school students, the Albany Times Union reported Thursday.“
“She’s a young teacher, a learning teacher,”
Patrice Maynard, a teacher and mentor to McConnell, told the newspaper.
She referred further questions to a letter promising that “errors in disciplinary action would not be repeated.”
Get that? “errors in disciplinary action would not be REPEATED.” That’s because this was the SECOND time duct-taping of children was done by this particular teacher. The first time, they did NOTHING!
Steiner taught Waldorf teachers that some children were DEMONS! Here’s how Steiner described one child:
Dr. Steiner: “That little girl L.. in the first grade must have something very wrong inside. There is not much we can do. Such cases are increasing in which children are born with a human form, but are not really human beings in relation to their highest I [the highest element of one’s spiritual being]; instead, they are filled with beings that do not belong to the human class. Quite a number of people have been born since the [1890s] without an I, that is, they are not reincarnated, but are human forms filled with a sort of natural demon. There are quite a large number of older people going around who are actually not human beings, but only natural; they are human beings only in regard to their form. We cannot, however, create a school for demons.”
A teacher: “How is that possible?”
Dr. Steiner: “Cosmic error is certainly not impossible. The relationships of individuals coming into earthly existence have long been determined. There are also generations in which individuals have no desire to come into earthly existence and be connected with physicality, or immediately leave at the very beginning. In such cases, other beings that are not quite suited step in…. They are also quite different from human beings in regard to everything spiritual. They can, for example, never remember such things as sentences; they have a memory only for words, not for sentences….
(Rudolf Steiner, FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, Anthroposophical Press, 1998, pp. 649-650.)
“Faculty Meetings” (by several names) is on every Waldorf teacher required reading list.
Here’s Rudolf Steiner himself bullying a child – notice how he attributes “karma” as the source of the problems he perceives. The child very obviously doesn’t respond to Steiner’s commands at the end. Steiner wisely chooses not to “force him”:
“And now, if you will begin to observe the child for yourselves — [to the boy] Come here a minute! — you will find many things to notice. Let me draw your attention, first of all, to the strongly developed lower half of the face. Look at the shape of the nose and the mouth. The mouth is always a little open, which has an effect on dental development. It is important to note these things, for they are unquestionably bound up with the whole soul-and-spirit constitution of the child… The formation you see here in the jaws — the jaws belong, of course, to the limb system — is wholly part of the head system … Look, he’s amused! I think Fraulein B. was asking him why he keeps his mouth open, and his reply was: ‘To let the flies come in.’ This is a firmly fixed opinion of his.
“… Here (in the front) as we remarked, the head is pressed together. In all probability this points back to a purely mechanical injury, either at birth or during pregnancy, a mechanical injury in which we can see nothing else than a working of karma …
“The whole breathing system … is very little under control … Hence the symptom that is so conspicuous in a child of this kind … What ought to happen is that gradually, in the course of life, the whole system of movement in man should become a servant of the intellectual system. [To the boy] Stand still a minute! And now come here to me and do this! (Dr. Steiner makes a movement with his arm as if to take hold of something; the boy does not make the movement.) Never mind! We mustn’t force him. Do you see? It is difficult for him to do anything; he has not the power to exercise the right control over his metabolism-and-limbs system….” [Rudolf Steiner, EDUCATION FOR SPECIAL NEEDS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1998), pp. 106-110.]
Steiner treats this “special needs” child as if he cannot even understand what is being said about him. What parent would expect their child to be humiliated in this way? To Steiner, the child was fulfilling his own karma – nothing to see here – move along. Again, this book is required reading in Waldorf teacher training.
Below is a Waldorf school document for faculty:
http://zooey.wordpress.com/2012/03/17/can-a-childs-karma-or-destiny-be-that-of-a-victim-or-bully/
p9, Bullying Presentation to Faculty – Handout
May 13, 1999
Alan Howard Waldorf School
Prepared by Cynthia Kennedy and Betty Robertson
Destiny
We have labored over this section and it has been written and rewritten a number of times. Can a child’s karma or destiny be that of a victim or bully? Is it a child’s destiny to seek certain experiences to build his or her self-esteem and inner self? Should a potentially abusive situation be stopped, and if so, at what point? We do not know the answers; however, when dealing with bullying behavior we thought that caution is necessary. If intervention can change the experiences that our children encounter then conceivably it is not entirely destiny we are dealing with. And perhaps all the children are better served if they are given tools to better handle aggression, be it their own, or their peers.
For a child who is being victimized, it must be the teacher’s role and responsibility to determine how much victimization is healthy to enable the child to be strengthened through the experience and at what point the exposure is excessive and detrimental. This situation is something that all teachers must struggle with, and the obligation becomes that much more onerous given that, in all likelihood, most of what a child is subjected to will be unknown to the teacher.
It appears that the bully, primarily through child rearing, arrives at our school with a predisposition to aggressive and bullying behavior. The research is not clear as to how much these children can be helped without the support of the parents. However, parental commitment is one of the qualities expected of any Waldorf family so there may be more success with our families than the average. In addition, we understand that doing biography work with the affected child(ren) and families may increase understanding and help the situation. Curative work, including assessments and curative eurythmy, perhaps in consultation with specialists like Anthroposophical doctors, may provide additional information to both the family and teacher(s).
Here’s a student’s story of bullying and sexual harassment by her Waldorf teacher.
A victim of teacher bullying at Waldorf
http://www.waldorfcritics.org/articles/teacher_bullying_sarah.html
“I remember him in first grade screaming at me in front of the whole class, because I was having trouble understanding a math problem. I also remember in first grade, we were doing our first painting and I forgot to wet my brush after dunking it with another color and I accidentally mixed that blue and the yellow making what was supposed to be a yellow, green. However, instead of giving me a chance to correct my mistake he just told me that I couldn’t paint that day. I laid my head down on the desk feeling devastated. As I look back as an adult, I look at him and I think to myself, ‘how dare he treat that little girl (me) that way.’ I was only seven years old. He could have given me a chance to fix the mistake. I remember in third grade, I misunderstood a homework assignment and he literally shamed me for the whole afternoon. It was a lot of things like that during the time he was my teacher.”
“Mr. M even sexually harassed me in fourth grade. One day he was out of the room and we were all running around, and there was this boy who was hitting girls on the butts, including me. I told the boy to stop it but he wouldn’t. When Mr. M came back into the room, I told him that this boy was hitting girls on the butts. However, instead of taking the boy aside and explaining to him that that kind of behavior was not okay, in front of the whole class, he lambasted me for being a tattletale, saying that it was just a game. He told me not to be so fragile or sensitive otherwise no one would want to be my friend. Eventually, I told my mother and she yelled in his face and told a friend of hers on the school board. Why this man hasn’t been fired I’ll never know.”
“Now I am not upset anymore with the ten year old boy, who was hitting girls on the butts. He being an immature ten year old boy who needed an adult to sit him down and explain why that kind of behavior is not okay. I am livid and furious and outraged about how a grown man could sink so low as to sexually harass a ten year old girl and allow and condone that kind of behavior. I know that when teachers go to school to become teachers they are taught about education law and when congress passes a new law or the Supreme Court rules on a law regarding education teachers are made aware of it. Title IX was passed in 1972, nine years before I was born and twenty years before the incident. The Minnesota state statute says all schools even private much have a sexual harassment policy, and this statute was passed in 1989. I know that Mr. M knew what sexual harassment was and that it was against the law in the 1991-1992 school years. However, after I was sexually harassed he turned around and violated my civil rights and sexually harassed me and taught every single student in that classroom that sexual harassment was okay. As a woman, a feminist, and a future lawyer it disgusts me and boggles my mind. I’ve heard that a lot of times Waldorf schools ignore civil rights laws and it’s wrong.”
“In first grade, I felt my self-esteem being affected and I felt very small as result of his behavior towards me and it made learning harder for me. I can see now that his bullying of me only made it harder for me to learn. Eventually in sixth grade, my parents finally saw Mr. M for who he was and took me out of that school. However, now I clearly see that what Mr. M did to me was to psychologically abusive, and disability harass me and sexually harass me.”
This parent blames the children of non-Waldorf parents for the horrible things that happened at school. Can’t be that wonderful “Waldorf education” we’ve heard so many good things about, right? If there are problems at Waldorf, its’ those pesky mainstream parents’ fault.
http://goodreasonblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/rational-look-at-steiner-schools.html
So parents, when you bring your child to a Waldorf school, consider what Waldorf teachers learn in their TRAINING:
1. How to establish if your child is a demon.
2. That they should stand by while your child is being bullied (oops, I mean, having their karma fulfilled for them).
3. Karma also requires some children to be the bullies.
4. That the child’s karma has drawn them to the Waldorf school because they need to experience whatever is in store for them there – even if it means they will be harmed.
5. Children are IMPROVED for having experienced bullying – regardless of whether they were the bully or the bullied child.
Parents considering Waldorf should ask themselves if children should be expected to do better in schools where it is their belief that it is *normal* even *better* for teachers to allow, and even to apply bullying and abuse to their students?
Here is some good advice from Mumsnet about what to do if your child is being bullied or is bullying others.
http://www.mumsnet.com/education/bullying
