Parents must be very careful and do your research well. This school DOES NOT RECOGNIZE BULLYING and goes to the extent of COVERING UP such incidents by teachers and school administration. Read up on Anthroposophy and the law of karma.”

Former Waldorf Parent

My Class 1 child was clearly ahead in Math, Science, and English compared to her classmates at Waldorf. There was a time my child kept asking questions in the classroom but the teacher avoided to answer them. Instead, I was called to school and was advised to keep the advance books away from my child until she was old enough or mature enough to handle the topic.

I find nothing wrong if a child is curious and ask questions but to be told that I as a parent had to keep the “advance” books away from my child was and is hindering her progress and intellect. I had not openly displayed the “adult” books my child had found with effort in our family home. She loved to read and read whatever she could find. It was then I realized that Waldorf was not fit for my child.

I was in love with the wholesome atmosphere that a Waldorf school promoted for children where their young minds could be nurtured. The school also came recommended by another Waldorf parent who apparently also had not done his research about the dark side of this school’s existence.

If I could turn back the clock, I would never have enrolled my child at Waldorf and would NEVER RECOMMEND ANY PARENT TO SEND THEIR CHILD TO ANY WALDORF SCHOOL. It had to take my child to open my eyes.

It took awhile to realize that Waldorf hindered her thirst for knowledge because she was discouraged from being inquisitive beyond what was taught at Waldorf for her age.

That Waldorf could not and did protect her from a teacher that started finding fault in our child to the extent that our child could see the other children were favored; that no matter how our child explained herself, she was still in the wrong and was demoralized by the same teacher.

The worst part was that Waldorf tolerated the bullying AND sexual abuse by a classmate because there was NO SEXUAL ABUSE in the first place. Whatever the Waldorf stand is, the fact remains that the sexual offenders are still enrolled at the school while the victims have left; yes, my child is not the only one. There are many others or there were many others over the decades spread across the various Waldorf schools in the world.

How sad indeed!

Waldorf is supposed to be a private school that pays attention to the needs of every child in its care though in 1 class, you might find that a child has violent tendencies, another has autism while another has ADHD etc. Is this really a better environment for your child? At least, in the public schools, children are assessed first before they are placed in a particular section with similar children.

Former Waldorf parent
Laguna, Philippines

The Rudolf Steiner School Kings Langley had already been banned by the Department for Education (DfE) from admitting any new pupils, following a series of damning Ofsted inspections which uncovered a raft of safeguarding failings.

It comes after Denis McCarthy, a senior staff member who was also a leading figure in the UK’s Steiner school movement, was sacked from the school for gross misconduct.

“He was a senior figure in anthroposophy,” a source close to the school told The Sunday Telegraph. “He was the most powerful person in the school, he had a large following.

“The school did everything that they could to protect him: minimizing or dismissing concerns, and deleting safeguarding emails.”

Source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/02/exclusive-top-steiner-school-ordered-close-government-child/

Administrators at Windsong School have spent more than a year fighting the allegations, which they say are part of a smear campaign by disgruntled parents.

The lawsuit was brought on behalf of six parents and six children who attended Windsong School in 2015 and 2016. It was filed this month in Spokane County Superior Court and seeks an unspecified amount in damages for claims of negligence, emotional distress, sexual harassment, disability discrimination and failure to report child abuse.

The plaintiffs sued anonymously. The complaint identifies the children by their initials and the parents as Jane and John Does. They are represented by Spokane attorney Kammi Mencke Smith, who could not be reached for comment.

“The families who have filed the lawsuit against Windsong School and their children were served with skill, compassion and generosity while they were enrolled at Windsong,” Lauren Bergstedt-Kohler, a kindergarten teacher and one of the school’s founders, said in a statement. “The families expected a lot from the school and our staff freely gave them extra time, care and attention. The allegations they are now making in this lawsuit are simply not true.”

Windsong School opened in 2012 on the Mukogawa Fort Wright Institute campus in west Spokane. With a current enrollment of about 160 students, Windsong teaches first- through sixth-graders and offers a “mixed age” kindergarten, which includes students as old as 6. Annual tuition is up to $6,444, not including mandatory fees for class supplies and flutes that students learn to play.

The nonprofit’s legal name is the Spokane Waldorf Education Association. It’s one of more than 150 schools in the United States that adhere to the Waldorf educational philosophy, which is rooted in the teachings of an Austrian man, Rudolf Steiner, who died in 1925.

Steiner produced a massive body of work spanning many disciplines, including spirituality, architecture, agriculture, economics and medicine, much of which he rolled into a belief system called “anthroposophy.” The name Waldorf comes from the first school that Steiner founded in 1919, a school for workers at the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory in Stuttgart, Germany.

Nowadays, Waldorf schools have a reputation as artsy and progressive. The kindergarten classes at Windsong School have names like Sunbeam and Huckleberry. Students learn to sing, knit, whittle, cook, clean and make all kinds of art projects. They’re encouraged to move, play and work out problems for themselves.

“We spend a robust amount of time outdoors, in all weather, to nurture the child’s connection to nature with the idea that children who are in tune with the world around them will become stewards of our earth,” Bergstedt-Kohler said.

Students aren’t taught the alphabet until first grade, and at some Waldorf schools that means they don’t read proficiently until age 9 or 10. Faceless dolls are the preferred toy, and classrooms are devoid of technology, as too much screen time is thought to damage kids’ ability to form meaningful relationships. At Windsong, there are no picture books – the idea being that children should come up with their own mental images to accompany stories.

Waldorf schools, including Windsong, have received praise from parents who prefer the down-to-earth experience over the more predictable, performance-focused curriculum offered at public schools. But most research on the effectiveness of the Waldorf model has been done by organizations that promote it.

Before they filed suit against Windsong, the parents filed complaints with several government agencies, including Child Protective Services, the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction and the state Department of Early Learning (now the Department of Children, Youth and Families). Bergstedt-Kohler said those agencies already have determined most of the allegations in the lawsuit are unfounded.

The lawsuit singles out Kumi Akiyama, a kindergarten teacher who left Windsong last summer to work at another Waldorf school in Portland. Among other allegations, the lawsuit claims Akiyama put students in timeout for hours on end, required them to play alone, told some kids that others didn’t like them and “justified bullying by stating that children must get rid of negative karma from past lives.”

Bergstedt-Kohler acknowledged that karma and reincarnation are themes of anthroposophy, but she said those ideas are not taught at Windsong. She provided a memo written by Windsong’s attorneys that was submitted as part of the OSPI investigation.

“Karma is not a concept or topic Ms. Akiyama teaches or utilizes in her classroom in any capacity,” the memo states, “and bullying of students is not something Ms. Akiyama would ever do, encourage or attempt to ‘justify.’”

The lawsuit also alleges that Akiyama and other Windsong employees mishandled several incidents in which girls were sexually assaulted by boys in their kindergarten class.

“Windsong’s response to the allegations was to say that sexual acts were normal and that students were working out their inner demons,” the lawsuit states. “With at least one student, Windsong blamed her for the sexual assault, and retaliated against her and her mother.”

The lawsuit faults Windsong for letting boys and girls use restrooms together in groups. The school argued that’s “a common early childhood practice which allows full supervision of all students at the same time,” but said it changed the policy after parents complained.

“The Windsong teachers, as child developmentalists, understand that young children are not yet experiencing sexual feelings but are curious about the human body in a very innocent and developmentally appropriate way,” the school’s lawyers wrote.

Akiyama did not return an email seeking comment, but Bergstedt-Kohler said she was beloved at Windsong, “not unlike Mary Poppins.” She said Akiyama was forced to resign because, while state investigations were underway, she was not allowed to teach a kindergarten class that was also licensed as a child care program.

“She was unable to live on a part-time salary and thus had to find other work as the length of the investigations stretched out over several months,” Bergstedt-Kohler said. “She suffered significant financial hardship, and Windsong School lost a trained and experienced teacher due to these parents.”

Bergstedt-Kohler said she was particularly troubled by the sexual assault claims, adding that Child Protective Services found the allegations to be baseless.

“This is a reckless allegation designed to cause harm to Windsong, which has been these families’ goal from the outset,” she said.

Source: https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2019/feb/21/windsong-school-faces-lawsuit-alleging-bullying/

Let’s take my Waldorf class as an example. I have photos of the class taken at various stages in its evolution. The earliest photo I own shows the class in second grade, which was my first year at the school. There were 21 of us in the class that year. By eighth grade, only 11 of us remained — nearly a 48% decline — although thanks to the addition of new students, our overall class size had risen to 27. By our senior year, further erosion left only nine of the the students from second grade — a total drop of 57%. Turning this around: Only about a third of the graduating students had been at Waldorf since second grade. Significantly, of my remaining original classmates, more than half had parents who worked for or with the school in some capacity at some time: Most of these families had made a deep commitment to the school. [1]

Bear in mind, this is an incomplete summation of the class’s history — I have photographs for just five of my eleven years at Waldorf, and none for the years before I enrolled. To gain deeper insight, we should begin with the initial enrollment in kindergarten and tabulate all the kids who came and went each year thereafter until the awarding of diplomas at high school commencement. According to the sketchy class history printed in our yearbook, only three of the graduating seniors — a small handful — made the long journey from the class’s earliest beginnings to its final scattering. Informative. But consider how much this does not tell us. How many kids joined and then left the class during the years for which I have no record? How long, on average, did kids who arrived after second grade stay at the school? Did any of my classmates leave but then rejoin us after an absence of a few months or years? Much of the texture of my class’s passage through Waldorf has receded into the dim past. Still, the overall pattern is clear. There was a heavy turnover in the class, with only a minority of students sticking it out long-term.

Another unknown: I cannot state the reasons various parents had for pulling their kids out of Waldorf. Some parents, I’m sure, grew disenchanted as they gradually learned — however imperfectly — about the school’s occult purposes. But in other instances, the reasons for withdrawal may have been quite different: The family may have moved away from the area, or a student simply didn’t get along with her/his Waldorf classmates, and so forth.

All of this bears upon the effect a Waldorf school may have on its students. The paradigm is complex. I knew some students who stayed only a year or two, and in retrospect I’d guess most of these kids were largely unaffected by the school. But some who came and left quickly, or who arrived late (I’d define this as seventh grade or later), appeared to be significantly marked. A student having spiritual yearnings but who spends only a brief time at a Waldorf school might quickly fall prey to Waldorf mysticism, while a student with secular inclinations might attend the school for many years without succumbing.

I’ll venture to speak for the long-termers in my class, among whom I count myself (I was a member of the class for more than a decade; a handful of my classmates were there several years longer than I was). The effects of the school were acute for some of us, although in differing ways. Some of us struggled with the consequences of Waldorf indoctrination for years after graduation — the school affected us deeply, and later we tried to undo the damage. But other longtime students did not struggle. Some emerged embracing Waldorf’s occult mission (although their knowledge of that mission had to be imperfect, since Steiner’s doctrines were never clearly explained to students or their parents). A third group of kids who stayed at Waldorf as long as I did or longer seemed to come through more or less unscathed. I believe these students included those who came from families, churches, synagogues, or other non-Anthroposophic backgrounds that equipped them with faiths or sets of allegiance that counterbalanced the spiritualistic training that Waldorf intended to give us. 

One subset of students seemed to be especially well-equipped to resist the Waldorf agenda. Jewish students — especially those who perceived the semi-Christian nature of the curriculum — were often successful in fending off the school’s occultism. Some were, to greater or lesser degrees, overt rebels (within the narrow confines of rebellion that Waldorf permitted before expelling a student). But even on this score, superficial categorization breaks down. I knew one Jewish student who went on to become a teacher in the Waldorf system and a Unitarian minister, although s/he had been a sharp-tongued rebel during high school.

Overall, my experiences, observations, and reading lead me to believe it is rare for a Waldorf school — even one that is profoundly committed to Steiner’s doctrines — to completely achieve its covert objectives with a large percentage of its students. But even partial “success” by a Waldorf school can be seriously injurious to a significant number of students. I think we should all rejoice that Waldorfs fail as often as they do. The chief harm that Waldorf schools can inflict is to pull children away from reality, enticing them into an occult fantasy world that, while pleasing in many ways, is divorced from truth. Kids often emerge from Waldorf schools woefully unprepared for real life in the real world. Some require many years — and sometimes much therapy — before they can get their feet on the ground and begin to live as rational adults. Some never make it; and some, indeed, never try. Some Waldorf graduates spend their entire lives in and around Anthroposophical communities of various sorts — they spend their years in an unending retreat from reality. Others attempt to live more conventionally, holding down regular jobs, participating in regular communities — only to find, over and over, that life after Waldorf is too hard, too disappointing. Having internalized misty, unrealistic spiritual desires, they fail over and over in their attempts to make their way in the world that actually exists.

Would a Waldorf or Steiner school fail with your child? By no means are all Waldorf faculty members thoroughly versed in Rudolf Steiner’s doctrines. Yet Waldorf faculties follow an educational scheme set up by Steiner for the explicit purpose of immersing students in an Anthroposophical atmosphere. So, the question becomes, which is more dangerous? Waldorf teachers who know full well what they are doing, or Waldorf teachers who don’t understand the effects their methods may have on children? Teachers in the latter group might be, in effect, innocently playing with a loaded gun — and, even when handled innocently, the gun can still go off.

A flat-out Anthroposophical Waldorf schools fails, by its own lights, whenever a student emerges without a deeply felt (if mentally fuzzy) devotion to the spirit realm as conceived in the Waldorf belief system. Sometimes, of course, such Waldorf schools succeed and students emerge happily embracing the spiritualistic beliefs and inclinations imparted by their teachers. In my view, these students have been significantly harmed. If you are a parent considering a Waldorf school for your children, you should carefully consider what you want for them. Would you want Waldorf to succeed in leading your kids to the pathway of occult spirituality? Perhaps you can find a Waldorf school that is only mildly devoted to Steiner and his occult preachments. Perhaps you can even find a “Waldorf” school that is not really a Waldorf school at all — it has no ties to Anthroposophy. If you can find such a school, sending your children there may be reasonably safe. But finding such a school may not be easy. [2]

If non-“Waldorf” Waldorf schools are reasonably safe, genuine, full-bore Waldorf schools are a different matter. Waldorf faculties typically claim that they do not teach the kids Anthroposophy. Instead, they claim, they equip students to make their own free choices in life. But as followers of Rudolf Steiner, true-bue Waldorf teachers believe that their ideology represents Truth, and of course — being responsible educators — they want to lead kids toward truth, not falsehood. Moreover, as Rudolf Steiner’s followers, dyed-in-the-wool Waldorf teachers believe that there is really just one correct path in life, the “white path” of Anthroposophical spirituality. Failing to lead children in the one correct direction in life would be, from the Waldorf perspective, morally indefensible. 

The truth is that authentic Waldorf schools contrive, one way or another, to one degree or another, to direct children’s feet toward the Anthroposophical path. If this what you want for your children? 

— Roger Rawlings

Source: https://sites.google.com/view/waldorfwatchwing/who-gets-hurt

Through the mediation we, and the school, have arrived at a set of statements concerning the events leading up to the 8th of June 2009, when the school expelled all our children, using loopholes in Private School Law, which the Law Commission happened to simultaneously recommend closing.

After those expulsions, a lot of effort was made by the school’s community to make the problem appear to be all about us, and to destroy our reputation, conveniently side-stepping the bullying issue which testimony shows has been going on at that school for decades.

For instance, on the 29th of June 2009, a meeting was held at the school for the parents of our eldest daughter’s class to discuss the events that led to our children’s expulsions. It was hosted by Mark Thornton and Susan Cole, our eldest daughter’s teacher. We were not invited to attend and only knew of the meeting and what was said at it, because other parents informed us.

During that meeting various slanderous claims were made including but not limited to:

-Our family is very unbalanced;

–The axe incident was all made up;

-Our eldest fabricates stories because we wouldn’t listen to her otherwise;

-She asked to be bullied (no one seemed to notice the obvious contradiction with the previous statement).

On the 20th of September 2009 Mark Thornton stated to a curious parent:

“the school has investigated all incidents reported by this family and has found them to be without substance.”

Richard Lee, a parent, added his voice to other derogatory comments on the Aucklander article from the 15th of July 2010 in which he said:

“the real story here is about two thugs who want to tear down a cherished community asset because the school dared to stand up to their unsatisfactory and inappropriate demands.”

This is just a very small sample of what we’ve had to endure during these three and a half years.

Compare those smears with the statements the school eventually signed off on with Human Rights involvement:

1. Titirangi Rudolph Steiner School (TRSS) accepts that the Paris Garden’s eldest child’s accounts were honest and that her actions in reporting bullying were fully commensurate with the school policy which emphasises the importance of telling both teachers and parents.

2. The class was a mixed-age class of 17 boys and 5 girls. There were many boys in the class who were nearly two years older than the Paris Garden’s daughter.

3. TRSS acknowledges that some children in the class displayed bullying behaviour.  

4. The Paris Garden’s middle child was very happy in the kindergarten right up until her place was withdrawn in response to her parents’ actions. The middle child had been happy in the kindy for over a year with no problems whatsoever and was settled with her teacher and her friends.

5. The Paris Garden’s youngest daughter was happy in the play group and registered to begin nursery in 2010.

6. In retrospect, TRSS regrets not going through with the meeting scheduled for Monday 8 June 2009, and acknowledges that the Paris Gardens had invited a parent representative to that meeting who was knowledgeable about socially inclusive ways of addressing bullying.

7. TRSS acknowledges that Steve and Angel’s words and actions (behaviour) in continuing to try and address the issues of bullying with TRSS, as they were advised and encouraged to do in all conversations with all TRSS staff, arose out of their natural and dutiful concern as parents for the safety of their child and concern for the wellbeing of other children in the class.

It’s a fact that our settlement arose only because of our publications. Without them, we would never have come to the attention of the Human Rights Commission, without whose help the school would undoubtedly still be playing the “we’re much too important to talk to you” and “we haven’t done anything wrong” cards. Even with Human Rights involvement, on the 9th of May 2011 their response was still to refuse mediation, saying:

“The school doesn’t consider it has in any way breached the Human Rights Act. It feels strongly that it has conducted itself fairly and civilly with Ms Garden and Mr Paris regarding the enrolment of their daughters.”

One of the good things about our settlement, is that it involves no confidentiality (gagging) clause whatsoever. Had we not settled in mediation but taken it to the Tribunal it is possible that there would have been suppression of the name of the school, whether we had won the case or not. So this is definitely a much better outcome since we are still free to let others know what happened here.

We hope this result can be of help to others, not just those experiencing similar problems at Steiner Schools worldwide, but certainly also at New Zealand private schools, still totally unregulated, as well as to anyone whose justified concerns about bullying are being ignored or demonised.

We want to encourage others not to listen to those who tell you to either publish or seek due process. We now believe, through this experience, that doing both simultaneously can be pretty effective, even if it does incur aggressive smearing.

Our settlement also shows clearly to all that we preferred to mediate rather than to litigate, as we have tried to do since the very beginning, and the statements we have agreed with the school also demonstrate that the vendetta that has been mounted against our family, was simply due to our supporting our daughter in asking them to make good with regard to their own policy on bullying.

The statements show that the school knows perfectly well that we have a legal duty to protect our children from bullying, including emotional bullying as well as physical assault. Also that we were deceived by the school into believing that they intended to deal with the bullying, and that we were encouraged in that belief by all the staff.

Obviously these statements do not go as far as to accept liability, and that’s the value to the school of settling in mediation, but we as a family, and that includes the children, feel that they do show clearly that we did absolutely nothing wrong, but that the school acted to protect the bullying at all times. Send your children there at their peril.

The process of pursuing this matter, has raised many further questions specifically about Steiner and bullying which we shall return to elsewhere.

The school has also agreed a modest payment of NZ$9,000 to our children. Let’s be very clear that this in no way reflects what it has cost us, even just financially, to follow this situation through. But we always said it was not about the money, and we meant it; neither could money possibly undo the damage that was done.

So that’s it. We will be tidying up this site, and adding testimonials from other families in due course, so that people can see how long this school has been treating others in this high-handed manner. We will not take this site down, nor have we been asked to.

We feel that people should know, not only that the school expelled bullied children but that they made us work for a full three and a half years to get them to admit it.

Not only does the result prove that what we’ve said consistently about the bullying was true, our daughter followed school policy and yet the school failed in its promises to take the bullying seriously.

The smears and judgements we suffered all turn out to be projections, and that matters because this is not some intellectual exercise, but a situation that damaged our family, and we are sharing it only because we think it’s useful.

Of course we hope the school will examine their shocking attitude to bullying problems that arise, but feel no confidence whatsoever that they will do so.

Without breaching the confidentiality of the mediation process, we can, and feel it’s important to, disclose that the school claimed poverty when it came to shelling out to make this situation go away. Not only that, but even having agreed to settle and pay, they actually went as far as to claim that they wouldn’t be able to pay until March when… wait for it… they get their Government grant.

Yes that’s right, this Steiner school, who proudly threw out the children on the basis that as a totally independent private school, they could do whatever they like, then said they couldn’t pay until the Government bailed them out with a hand-out. Supreme irony? We think so.

So why doesn’t the school have enough money, not just to pay their Human Rights abuses fines, but even to pay all their teachers? Why was there a teacher working for nothing up there during the last school year?

Here’s our advice. Stop shooting the messenger and run a better school.

Steve Paris & Angel Garden

Addendum (26 January 2013):

Here’s a link to a scanned copy of the original signed statements. The only parts removed are our daughters’ names and the technical details of the agreed payment.

Source: https://titirangisteinermessenger.com/News/Entries/2013/1/three-and-a-half-years.html

There is no question that bullying and abuse have occurred regularly at Highland Hall since its inception in 1955. Back then, it was easier to cover up the occasional abuse of students by teachers (and sometimes parents) – and still cases of abuse at Highland Hall were documented throughout the years. Abuse of children is still acceptable today at Highland Hall. I have personally documented many cases of abuse and brought them to the Highland Hall Board’s attention without too much success (It was because of the combined voices of a few brave parents that a couple of the worst teachers finally left voluntarily). But the question remains, why does Highland Hall turn a blind eye to the bullying and abuse of children by its teachers – both on and off campus?

It may not come as a surprise to many who have been reading my previous letters about racism at Highland Hall, that it’s the same hidden philosophy behind Highland Hall and Waldorf – Anthroposophy, the philosophy that permits racism – which also permits Waldorf teachers to stand by while children bully children, and while teachers abuse children (and parents).

Where exactly does Anthroposophy say abuse of children is permitted? Well, first, it helps if one believes some children aren’t really “children” but “demons”.

“Demons are born through man’s immoral conduct. Let us look at the difference between the demons that arise through immoral behaviour and the spiritual entities – spiritual in so far as they only achieve a watery existence on Earth – the spiritual forms that are created by moral actions.” …

“The demons created out of immoral actions also have an astral body, an ether body and a physical body, at the watery level of course, but they do not have the basis for developing an ego. They are born headless, as it were. They do not take up the basis for regular evolution to Jupiter existence but reject it. By doing so they condemn themselves to a fate of dropping out of evolution and adding to the hordes of luciferic beings, falling into their power. Unable to progress in a regular way they become parasites. This is what happens to all the spirits who reject normal evolution; they have to attach themselves to others in order to progress. Spirits who arise through immoral actions have a particular tendency to be parasites in human evolution on Earth under Lucifer’s leadership, and to seize hold of the evolution of human beings before these make their physical entry into the world. They attack human beings during the embryonic stage and share their existence between conception and birth. Some of these spirits, if they are strong enough, can continue to accompany the human being after birth, creating the phenomena seen in children who are possessed.

“The criminal demons attached as parasite to unborn children cause deterioration in the succession of the generations; this eats into human beings, making them less good than they would be if these demons did not exist. There are various reasons for the decline of families, tribes, people and nations, but one of them is the existence of these criminal demon parasites during the period mentioned.

“These things play an important part in Earth evolution as a whole, and we are here touching on deep secrets of human existence. People often acquire certain prejudices and points of view even before they are born because of this. They are then tormented by doubts and uncertainties in life, and all kinds of other things, because of these demonic parasites.

“These spirits cannot do very much once human beings develop their ego, but they prey on them all the more before they are born or in their earliest years.” (from “Future Jupiter Existence” (Dornach, 3 January 1915), reprinted in Angels: Selected Lectures by Rudolf Steiner; London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1996 reprinted 1998). (pp 167-168))

And directly from the Waldorf Teacher Training reading list:

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….

“I do not like to talk about such things since we have often been attacked even without them. Imagine what people would say if they heard that we say there are people who are not human beings. Nevertheless, these are facts. Our culture would not be in such a decline if people felt more strongly that a number of people are going around who, because they are completely ruthless, have become something that is not human, but instead are demons in human form.

“Nevertheless, we do not want to shout that to the world. Our opposition is already large enough. Such things are really shocking to people. I caused enough shock when I needed to say that a very famous university professor, after a very short time between death and rebirth, was reincarnated as a black scientist. We do not want to shout such things out into the world.” (Rudolf Steiner, FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, Anthroposophical Press, 1998, pp. 649-650.)

Note that in the last two paragraphs, Steiner makes it clear to Waldorf teachers that this “demon” stuff is to be kept secret from “the world”. Nonetheless, demons can appear in the form of children, according to Steiner.

So if children may be demons, who decides if they are demons? Well, that would have to be the best trained people for this – Waldorf teachers. Do some Waldorf teachers really think children’s bodies can be inhabited by demons? YES, they REALLY DO! By some unfortunate stroke of bad luck, Waldorf teacher (and now teacher trainer at Highland Hall) Christine Leonard announced my own daughter was demonically possessed when she was 10 years old. To exercise these demons, apparently exercise (running laps) was a good thing. So was cleaning toilets, having her belongings searched, labeled as a liar (for revealing what she saw), endless verbal abuse and being singled out as a… well… a demon – to the whole class. My daughter started on a path of self-destruction from that time on. Mrs. Leonard’s diagnosis has taken its toll on my daughter over the years – despite the therapy she has required. Some Waldorf teachers may believe Mrs. Leonard was right about her diagnosis of my daughter. They definitely believe Steiner when he says demons exist in children. If you ask me… there are demons at work at Waldorf – but they are not in our children. Not YET…

But what does it say about the role models we are providing for our kids when they are known to be dishonest? We know many teachers at Highland Hall have lied to the parents. We know this because under pressure, they have had to admit it. Nonetheless, we allow them to be our children’s role models. Dishonest people don’t make very good role models… in fact DISHONEST PEOPLE MAKE LOUSY ROLE MODELS.

And why are Waldorf teachers dishonest? Because Steiner TOLD THEM they should be. Again, from the paragraph above:

“I do not like to talk about such things since we have often been attacked even without them. Imagine what people would say if they heard that we say there are people who are not human beings. Nevertheless, these are facts. Our culture would not be in such a decline if people felt more strongly that a number of people are going around who, because they are completely ruthless, have become something that is not human, but instead are demons in human form.”

Steiner instructed Waldorf teachers to keep their knowledge from the outside world. Does that mean parents too? On page 10 of Faculty Meetings with Rudolf Steiner:

“However, there is something else that I would ask you to be aware of. That is, that we, as the faculty—what others do with the children is a separate thing—do not attempt to bring out into the public things that really concern only our school. I have been back only a few hours, and I have heard so much gossip about who got a slap and so forth. All of that gossip is going beyond all bounds, and I really found it very disturbing. We do not really need to concern ourselves when things seep out the cracks. We certainly have thick enough skins for that. But on the other hand, we clearly do not need to help it along. We should be quiet about how we handle things in the school, that is, we should maintain a kind of school confidentiality. We should not speak to people outside the school, except for the parents who come to us with questions, and in that case, only about their children, so that gossip has no opportunity to arise.”

So secrecy is the name of the game with Waldorf. Parents aren’t given a truthful story when abuse happens… not because some teacher made bad choices during a crisis, but because that’s what Waldorf teachers are TRAINED to do. And THAT is why when they are finally fired for their bad behavior, they simply transfer to another school. They haven’t done anything wrong in Waldorf/Steiner’s view. Lying to parents and covering up bad behavior is part of Waldorf. If you have any doubts, read FACULTY MEETINGS with RUDOLF STEINER – starting at page 377. Read how, when an incident involving Waldorf students happened, Steiner himself worked with teachers to hide the truth from the public.

This is why Waldorf teachers are deceptive. They are TAUGHT to be deceptive. It’s part of Waldorf education to be deceptive… to lie to parents… even about their own children. Why? Because according to Steiner, the Waldorf teacher is more important to the spiritual development of the child than the parents are.

Source: http://petekaraiskos.blogspot.com/2010/10/why-highland-hall-permits-bullying-and.html

and is posted with the permission of the author. — Dan

To The Parents Desert Sky Community School and the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools: 

My name is Rachael Colley and I recently resigned from Desert Sky Community School. [1] I am writing to inform you of the reason for my untimely departure. I resigned from my position as grade 3/4 teacher because I was unaware that I had been employed by what is, in my opinion, a religious cult [2] and cannot in good conscience continue, despite my love of the children and my sincere desire to give them the best education. 

I love that Waldorf education has a rhythm [3], that there is a large block in the morning for children to really get into the lesson and that true unstructured play is encouraged. However,  I cannot work in a place where lighting candles at a staff meeting and chanting a childs name (without the parents knowledge), as well as reading from the “Calendar of the Soul” [4] is done and is seen as normal, and even called a “child study”.

I cannot work in a place where the children are told to walk on the outside of the circle because the director is afraid they will “break the chalice”. [5] Or where children say verses (prayers) to “spirit”. [6] I am a spiritual person, but it should not be required of children in a publicly funded school. When this was brought up to my superiors, I was told that they “cannot imagine how I think religion is there”. [7] Yet I was told that the chicken coop must be built in a certain way because it, “brings the childrens souls to the earth”. [8]

If you have not already looked up anthroposophy, please do. It underpins everything that is said and done at Desert Sky. Understand that you will be lied to [9], and some people at Desert Sky believe that they know more about your child and what is best for him/her than you do. [10] Many (parents) are referred to in negative terms behind their backs, and your children are saying prayers with words that they do not know the meaning of. 

There are good people at Desert Sky, people who love your children and also want the best for them. However, someone needed to stand up and be the voice of what really happens and what is really expected. Sadly, that task seems to have fallen onto me. 

To all of the families, especially those with children in grades three and four I wish you all the best. 

Sincerely,

Rachael Colley

Source: https://sites.google.com/site/waldorfwatch/why-she-quit