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

July 8, 2014

Dear Members of the Green Meadow Waldorf School Community:

This letter is very difficult to write and will be very upsetting to read. On August 6, 2013, we informed you about deeply disturbing allegations made by Green Meadow alumna Kate Christensen ‘80 in her recently published memoir, “Blue Plate Special: An Autobiography of My Appetites.” In her memoir, Ms. Christensen wrote that she had been sexually abused at our school by a teacher (referred to as “Tomcat” in the book) on a number of occasions in the late 1970s. We identified the teacher as John Alexandra, who stopped teaching on a full-time basis at Green Meadow in 1979. Upon learning of Ms. Christensen’s allegations, we immediately informed local authorities and barred Mr. Alexandra from our campus and property.

Recognizing that the safety and well-being of our past and present students and faculty is paramount, we also indicated that Green Meadow was beginning a full, independent investigation into the allegations of sexual abuse. We retained Steven Gerber, a former federal prosecutor, a legal expert in this field, and partner of the firm Gonzalez Saggio & Harlan. Mr. Gerber’s firm hired Lisa Friel, a senior executive at T&M Protection Resources (T&M). Ms. Friel is the former Chief of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office’s Sex Crimes Unit, has conducted thousands of sexual misconduct investigations, and is a well-recognized expert on sexual misconduct issues.

I am writing to inform you that Ms. Friel and her team have completed their investigation. Attached to this letter is our summary of T&M’s factual findings, as contained in their investigative report, as well as a summary of their recommendations to better safeguard our students. Many of these recommendations, as you will read, have already been put into place.

T&M was granted unfettered access to interview all relevant witnesses, and to conduct a thorough and comprehensive examination of past and present practices and policies. While this investigation was initiated because of allegations made about John Alexandra, its scope was much broader, and included an examination of allegations of inappropriate conduct or boundaries crossed by any teacher or faculty member here at Green Meadow, and indeed within the larger Threefold Educational Foundation Community (“Threefold”). Ninety-five people were interviewed and thousands of pages of documents were examined. As a result, T&M’s investigative report is highly detailed, extremely thorough, and quite lengthy. The report itself cannot be provided to the Green Meadow community because it contains privileged and confidential information concerning individuals, including the identity of former students and others who provided relevant information on a confidential basis.

One of the purposes of this letter and our summary of critical factual findings and recommendations by T&M is to share with you what we have learned, keeping in mind that we will protect the privacy rights of those who were minors at the time, and those victims and other witnesses who came forward and wish to remain anonymous. We have proceeded very carefully in this regard, balancing the need to fully address and take responsibility for the pain of the victims and past mistakes made at Green Meadow, while recognizing the rights of those who participated in this investigation, as well as those who were accused. Those investigated for sexual misconduct were only named in this report if, according to T&M’s expert analysis, there was substantial evidence to support that conclusion.

Before we address the results of the investigation, we feel it is very important that you, our community, understand that there is another reason that we are writing to you at this time. It is to apologize. To Ms. Christensen and all other victims, we are so sorry for your pain and anguish, including any suffering endured by those close to you. We also apologize to parents, alumni, and all members of the faculty and staff who were impacted by this environment. We cannot undo what has been done in the past, nor can we ever know the full extent of pain that has been caused. We do know that we can disclose what we know now, offer this apology, and do what we can to support healing for all involved. But we offer more than an apology. We pledge to everyone affected and to everyone in our community that we are fully committed to the safety and emotional well-being of our past, present, and future community members. We promise not to waver from this commitment to you.

We also thank everyone who provided information during this investigation, those of you who were victimized as well as those of you who were not, but who possessed relevant information. We understand that in many cases this was very difficult to do and we honor your bravery. And finally, before we share the findings of the investigation, we take this opportunity to acknowledge the courage of Kate Christensen in coming forward as she did, which allowed us to fully acknowledge errors and misjudgments of the past. We will emerge a better, stronger school because of her.

With sincerity,

Eric Silber
Co-Administrator

Jonathan Lynn
Board President

KEY FACTUAL FINDINGS OF THE INVESTIGATION

Scope

After becoming aware of Kate Christensen’s memoir in 2013, Green Meadow retained Steven Gerber of Gonzalez Saggio & Harlan with Lisa Friel of T&M Protection Resources (T&M) in order to conduct a thorough and independent investigation. Green Meadow is one of a community of schools and programs affiliated with the Threefold Educational Foundation (“Threefold”). T&M was allowed unrestricted access to past and present Green Meadow faculty and staff, former students, and any other members of the Green Meadow and Threefold communities to whom they wished to speak. The investigation was not limited to allegations concerning John
Alexandra. Rather, T&M investigators were mandated to pursue any allegations of inappropriate sexually-related conduct that came to light about any other faculty or staff members. T&M began its investigation in August 2013, concluded it in February 2014, and provided us with a report in May 2014. T&M only identified individuals as victims or offenders if, in their expert opinion, there was substantial evidence to support that conclusion. T&M made specific findings concerning misconduct by certain faculty members at Green Meadow, and also recommended a number of changes in policies at Green Meadow and its affiliated organizations. Green Meadow, through its attorneys and T&M, communicated with the Rockland County District Attorney’s Office regarding findings that fell within that Office’s jurisdiction.

John Alexandra

John Alexandra was a Green Meadow teacher from 1965 until at least 1979. He was a Threefold Board member from at least 1975 through 1983 and has been a long-standing community member, right up until the time Green Meadow learned of these serious allegations. T&M’s investigation has concluded that Mr. Alexandra committed a multitude of crimes, including sexual assault, stalking, harassment, and endangering the welfare of a child, all in violation of the New York State Penal Law. These crimes took place on Threefold property and the surrounding area while in his various capacities as teacher, Board member, and community member. Mr. Alexandra has now been permanently barred from Green Meadow and Threefold property as a result of these findings.

T&M attempted to interview Mr. Alexandra but was advised by his attorney that he had declined the opportunity to be interviewed. Based on T&M’s interviews of victims and witnesses along with other corroborating evidence, the investigation has concluded that Mr. Alexandra sexually assaulted thirteen victims in total. Twelve of the victims were female GMWS students. The students’ ages ranged from 12 to 17 years old, with one victim’s abuse continuing
until she graduated at 18. Eleven of the twelve victims were students during the 1970s and early 1980s, and one was a student in 2001. The thirteenth victim, an adult female, was assaulted in 2013.

T&M determined that Mr. Alexandra’s abuse typically started with long, uncomfortable hugs that included inappropriate rubbing and touching, and oftentimes progressed to more egregious criminal conduct, including unwanted sexual intercourse and statutory rape. T&M’s findings were that the incidents involving sexual intercourse took place in the late 1970s and early 1980s. None of his victims wanted to engage in this behavior and all but one were legally incapable of consenting, as they were less than 17 years of age at the time of contact. His conduct also ranged from lesser forms of criminal conduct such as stalking and harassment to other conduct that did not rise to the level of a crime, but was certainly inappropriate under the circumstances, such as long, unsolicited, “uncomfortable” hugs, kisses, and prolonged handshakes.

T&M also determined that Mr. Alexandra stalked or harassed some of these same victims, which also violated New York State Law, by appearing unannounced when they were on walks or alone in their homes. Some victims also received handwritten letters from Mr. Alexandra, of an inappropriately personal nature, both in content and tone. In some cases, this same behavior continued for years after students had left Green Meadow.

Finally, evidence shows it was widely known that Mr. Alexandra would engage openly and often in “hugging” people, primarily women. A number of witnesses shared that they had experienced or witnessed these “hugs,” which have been described as long, forceful, with full frontal body contact and often included Mr. Alexandra rubbing himself inappropriately against them while, in some cases, becoming sexually aroused. Given the evidence uncovered by the
investigation, it is clear that what has been described by these witnesses as “hugging” was in many cases a form of sexual abuse.

One of the central conclusions from the independent investigation is that Green Meadow failed to adequately protect its students, faculty, staff, and community members from Mr. Alexandra. Allowing Mr. Alexandra to freely roam Threefold property resulted in giving him essentially unrestricted access to students and faculty members, and thereby enabled him to continue to victimize others. A number of the adults at Green Meadow and Threefold were in a position to have stopped Mr. Alexandra’s inappropriate and sometimes criminal behavior. However they did not do so, either because they were unaware of the breadth of his misconduct, or because they failed to understand the seriousness of what they had been told or had seen.

A number of factors have been identified as contributing to the School’s failure to stop Mr. Alexandra’s inappropriate and at times criminal conduct when it occurred:

• A lack of expertise in what constitutes sexual abuse.
• A failure to investigate or properly investigate facts when brought to faculty
  members’ attention.
• A reluctance to avoid confronting a person with prominent standing in the
  community.
• An administrative structure that was not well-suited to dealing with these types
  of issues.
• A lack of communication between Threefold-affiliated schools and programs.
• A lack of a written policy identifying clear and appropriate boundary lines
  between faculty and students and a clear protocol for reporting and
  investigating such reports.
• A lack of education and training for GMWS students, faculty and staff, and
  parents regarding identifying and reporting inappropriate conduct.

T&M’s investigation revealed that many of Mr. Alexandra’s victims did not report their victimization to anyone at the time that it occurred. T&M determined there were many reasons why victims did not report Mr. Alexandra’s abusive conduct. All but one of his victims was a child. T&M noted that it is well-known and well-documented that child victims of abuse, especially sexual abuse, rarely report their abuse while they are still children. There are a multitude of reasons for this: their fear they will not be believed, embarrassment, fear they will get in trouble, and sometimes, a lack of understanding as to the true nature of what is being done to them, i.e., that what is happening is in fact sexual abuse. These fears are compounded when the abuser is someone in a position of authority and/or respect in their community. Mr. Alexandra was a prominent member of the community and in a position of authority. Therefore his child victims were even less likely to come forward. In addition, T&M found that there was a feeling among some victims that adults at Green Meadow were complicit in what Mr. Alexandra was doing, since they observed his inappropriate behavior yet encouraged students to maintain a relationship with him. In addition, some victims told T&M that they did not think the adults at Green Meadow would do anything about Mr. Alexandra’s behavior if they complained because some of these adults, the victims believed, were having inappropriate relationships with other
students. Finally, T&M concluded that the lack of clear and appropriate boundary lines between students and teachers at Green Meadow contributed to the victims’ failure to report Mr. Alexandra’s inappropriate and sometimes criminal behavior.

Confidential was a middle school teacher at Green Meadow from 1979 to June 1983. In 1983, Confidential sexually assaulted a female middle school student during a school-sponsored trip. T&M’s investigation revealed that this female student’s victimization became known to Green Meadow when Confidential admitted to another Green Meadow teacher shortly thereafter what had happened. Confidential had already planned to leave Green Meadow at the end of the 1983 school term, having taken a teaching job at Confidential thus Green Meadow did not have to determine if he should be fired. However, there were other steps T&M concluded Green Meadow should have taken.

The investigation concluded that Green Meadow failed to act appropriately when the School became aware of the incident. There was no formal internal investigation conducted, nor were the police contacted. Other than the faculty member to whom Confidential admitted his criminal behavior, no other Green Meadow personnel questioned him about this. When contacted by T&M during its investigation, Confidential admitted to inappropriate sexual contact with this student and no doubt would have done so at the time. No one from Green Meadow ever spoke to the victim about what happened, nor did anyone determine if she needed counseling. The victim’s parents were not contacted that year in a timely or appropriate fashion and indeed did not become aware of what happened to their daughter until she told them a number of years later in an effort to prevent Green Meadow from allowing Confidential back on campus. In short, Green Meadow failed to handle this matter in an appropriate fashion.

Other Findings

Confidential was a lower school teacher employed at Green Meadow from 1981 to 2005. T&M’s comprehensive investigation led it to conclude that in 2005, Confidential was in possession of child pornography at his residence on Threefold property. The child pornography found in Confidential‘s possession was viewed by other witnesses and was reported to the administrator at Green Meadow. At the time, there was less than one week left in the school year. Green Meadow assigned another teacher to teach with Confidential in his class for that last week of school and to accompany him for all graduation activities. It then severed its professional relationship with him after the term ended.

T&M’s investigation revealed that after the child pornography was discovered at his home, Confidential admitted to at least one adult member of the Green Meadow community that he was attracted to young girls and to another that he was a sex addict. T&M also determined that Confidential admitted to another witness in the Threefold community that he had a “problem” with child pornography. During the course of its investigation, T&M learned that Confidential had taken many photographs of students, including students in swimwear, with at least one provocative photograph of a young female student on Threefold property.

T&M concluded that after Confidential was discovered to have possessed child pornography, it was incumbent on the School to conduct a prompt and thorough investigation to determine if he had acted inappropriately with any Green Meadow students or other children in the area. At the time, this was not done. Subsequently, T&M did not find any evidence of inappropriate sexual contact between Confidential and any Green Meadow student.

Possession of child pornography is, and was in 2005, both a State and Federal felony offense. However, the law did not require Green Meadow to report Confidential‘s possession of child pornography to law enforcement. The School at the time sought, and followed, the advice of its then legal counsel as to how and to whom to communicate what they learned about Confidential and why he was no longer working at Green Meadow.

Based on the results of T&M’s investigation, Confidential has now been permanently barred from Green Meadow and Threefold property.

Recommendations

T&M’s investigation provided Green Meadow with a report card on the School’s conduct spanning over several decades. It was tough, unflinching, and very painful to read. While we cannot go back to the past and undo what was done, we can learn from this and make the necessary changes in order to protect our current and future students, faculty and staff, and members of our community.

As a result of this independent investigation, T&M has made certain recommendations concerning Green Meadow policies regarding sexual harassment and abuse as well as boundary guidelines that it feels should be instituted. They also recommended training for all members of the Green Meadow community (students, faculty and staff, and parents) on these policies, procedures, and boundary guidelines. Green Meadow has taken all of these recommendations very seriously and we have begun implementing them. These recommendations will also be
applied across all entities on Threefold property, where appropriate, to ensure the safety and well-being of all communities in addition to Green Meadow students.

From these recommendations, we have already conducted substantial training on sexual harassment, anti-discrimination, and boundary guidelines for all faculty and staff and have implemented a more comprehensive background screening for any adult who comes into contact with Green Meadow students. We are in the final stages of adopting a new written antiharassment policy and procedure protocols, which will include clear definitions of harassment and abuse, reporting structures and responsibilities, retaliation protection, mandated reporting
requirements, and consequences for policy violations, as well as adopting Boundary Guidelines to address appropriate interaction between Green Meadow students and Green Meadow employees. These new policies and guidelines will be aligned with other written Green Meadow policies and will be included in the student handbook and employee policy manual as well as placed on the School website.

We will continue to train faculty and staff as well as provide education for students and parents on these Anti-Harassment Policies and Boundary Guidelines on an annual basis. Additionally, we will be strengthening hiring practices already in place and establishing more formal interorganizational communication regarding incidents of harassment between all entities on Threefold property. Finally, there will be a clear mechanism for any student, parent, faculty member, or staff member to make an anonymous report to a third party if they feel they are not
able to report to someone within the School or Threefold community.

T&M has made all of these recommendations, and we have adopted them, with the unequivocal objective of making Green Meadow Waldorf School the safest, most hospitable learning environment it can possibly be.

Source: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1216329-sexual-abuse-investigation-at-green-meadow

“When I think of the horrific experience I had, struggling with my children’s school, I felt I had to say something,” he declared.

His four children from his first marriage attended Michael Hall in East Sussex, one of 26 Steiner schools in Britain. “I wanted them to have a less pressurised education than I had,” he says. But he became disillusioned by the Steiner approach; two years ago, he sent his children to conventional schools.

Gilmour is not an outspoken man. But his children’s education, he feels, went so badly wrong that he wanted to make his views public. He understands the irony of his situation. In 1979, Pink Floyd had a hit with Another Brick in the Wall, from the album The Wall, which featured the ringing line “We don’t need no education”. That song, which inspired rebellion in a generation of exam-weary teenagers, accorded with his feelings about his own schooling.

Gilmour was brought up in Cambridge, where his father was a senior lecturer in zoology. He was sent to the the Perse – “It was a very disciplined school which I didn’t enjoy” – then left to take A-levels at a local college, but abandoned his exams for his guitar. “I knew that if I got the A-levels, I would be expected to go to university and I wanted to be a musician,” he says.

He wanted his own children to have a more enjoyable experience, so when he and his wife separated, he fell in with her wishes and sent his children to Michael Hall. “But it soon became apparent that my children were neither happy nor learning.”

Several aspects of the Steiner system alarmed him. “Steiner believes that six to seven is the age at which to start teaching reading and writing. My son, Matthew, was frustrated by not being able to write his name at seven. When he left, aged nine, he could only just read.”

Another central plank of the philosophy is that, between the ages of eight and 14, children should remain with the same teacher for the main lesson every morning. This is designed to promote continuity and works well if child and teacher get on. If not, Gilmour says, “it can be torture”.

“The school had its good aspects, but overall, the system seemed slack. I found the children’s knowledge was very patchy, and their school reports, which consisted only of praise, gave me little idea of how they were really doing.” Since the system is non-hierarchical, with no head teacher, Gilmour felt there was no one with sufficient authority to resolve his anxieties.

So concerned did he become that he took his children to be assessed by educational psychologists. The results shocked him. Matthew, when first examined in 1994, was judged to have an average IQ of 101 but was considered to be “seriously disabled in terms of literacy acquisition, with his reading and spelling lying a full three years below his chronological age”.

Less than two years later, Matthew was retested. The educational psychologist found him to have “flourished” outside the Steiner system; his retested IQ was now 124. (Confidence can make a difference to a child’s scores on intelligence tests.)

Now 11, Matthew reads and writes fluently; more importantly, says his father, his demeanour has changed. “He often used to communicate in grunts and screeches, but now he is more outgoing.”

His three daughters, too, had fallen behind. Sarah, the youngest, was 14 when she was transferred to a conventional school. Her IQ is high, but she had to be put in a class of girls a year younger than she was, and still struggled. She has now caught up with her classmates, and, according to Gilmour, “has far more understanding of what is going on in the world, and seems much happier”.

Clare, 18, who has dyslexia, now attends a specialist college, while Alice, 21, left Michael Hall with one A-level in art. Unqualified for a British university, she is about to start college in America.

Martyn Rawson, spokesman for the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship, defends the Steiner approach, pointing out that pupils regularly achieve above average results in their GCSE and A-level exams. “More than half of our pupils go on to higher education,” he says. “With the ones that don’t, it’s often a conscious choice rather than a lack of the necessary qualifications.”

“With a very self-motivated child or one who needs intensive nurturing, Steiner can do a good job,” says Peter Gilchrist, one of the psychologists Gilmour consulted. “There is great emphasis on feeling and sensitivity, and on first-hand experience of nature.”

However, he feels that the rigidity of Rudolph Steiner’s 75-year-old philosophy can be problematic. “The system believes that children should take steps only when they are ready. Steiner teachers tend to assume any problems will all come right in the end and can be reluctant to acknowledge modern solutions. I once recommended that a child who had problems with motor skills should use a keyboard, but I was told that the writing had to come from within.”

Most children, he feels, thrive in a system that exerts more pressure on them.

“They need fixed boundaries. Few children are so naturally hard-working that they beg to be given more maths problems.”

Gilmour’s children from his second marriage will go to mainstream state schools. They won’t be as tough as the one that sent him into revolt – but they will teach the three Rs from the age of five.

1997 © Telegraph Group Limited
CASSANDRA JARDINE, Education: `We don’t need no Steiner education’ Pink Floyd sparked a classroom revolt but, Cassandra Jardine finds, its leader now believes firmly in the three Rs. , The Daily Telegraph, 10-08-1997, pp 22.

Source: http://www.waldorfcritics.org/articles/TelegraphGilmour.html

My association with the school began in 1998, when my wife and I enrolled our daughter as a pupil, but it wasn’t until two or three years later when I joined a study group for parents that I began to get more involved. I was trying to understand more about what lay behind the education and this was the start of a quest that continues to this day.

In 2004 I applied for and was appointed to a part-time role as communications officer for the school. I soon realised that, if I was to do the job properly, I would need to be able to sit in on the meetings of the College of Teachers and listen to their discussions. (For those unfamiliar with Steiner Waldorf education, it should be explained that in many Steiner schools there is no head teacher and the responsibility for running the school resides with those faculty members who wish to take on this additional task.)

RSSKL’s College of Teachers kindly agreed to let me join their meetings so I began to get an insider’s view of how the school was run. College meetings were held on Thursday evenings, just after the weekly meeting open to all staff, which I also attended. At first I listened and observed at the College meetings and, as I was not a teacher, did not say very much; but after a while I began to speak whenever a topic came up about which I knew something. After a year or two the College felt sufficiently comfortable with me that they asked me to chair the meeting – and so I became, as far as I know, the only non-teacher ever to be College Chair in a Steiner school. This I did for around three years, before later taking up a full-time post at the school.

As my role then was part-time, and because my wife and I were paying full fees for our daughter at the school, I needed to take on another job. In 2008 I found part-time work for the other half of the week as communications officer with the executive group of the Steiner Waldorf Schools’ Fellowship (SWSF) and so was able to widen my acquaintance with other Steiner schools in the UK. It was an exciting time to be at SWSF: Christopher Clouder was busy making links with schools around the world and putting the case for Steiner Waldorf education within the European Union; Sylvie Sklan was putting in the spadework that led to the creation of the first publicly-funded Steiner academy schools in England; Janni Nicol was doing wonderful work in Early Years’ education and helping to create understanding in government of the Waldorf approach; Kevin Avison was travelling within the UK and Ireland advising schools on a whole range of issues, while also finding time to develop a quality scheme and arranging for Steiner schools to receive their Ofsted inspections via School Inspection Services Ltd, a new company set up by former HMIs (Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Education); while Jane Avison looked after administrative matters with great efficiency via the SWSF office in Stourbridge. Trevor Mepham and Alan Swindell, both soon to become principals in two of the new Steiner academy schools, were also active in the executive group at various times.

As part of my communications work with SWSF, I started to collect links to news items from around the world about, or of relevance to, Steiner schools . Each Friday during term time I would circulate these links to schools in the UK and Ireland, as well as to quite a long list of individuals who had asked to receive them. Thus it was that I became increasingly aware of the criticisms of Rudolf Steiner and Steiner Waldorf schools that were at that time starting to be widely disseminated online. I was upset by many of these criticisms, which did not accord with my understanding of Steiner or my experience of Waldorf schools. The sheer viciousness of the many misrepresentations I saw online led me to engage with some of these critics, in what with hindsight I now regard as naïve and well-meaning attempts to increase understanding and put the record straight. Today I would claim to have a more nuanced view of these criticisms, some of which were undoubtedly justified.

Back in 2004 a new chair of trustees at RSSKL, the excellent John Doherty (himself a parent at the school), was using his business expertise to steer the ship away from the rocks of financial disaster, caused largely by an over-lenient attitude from the school towards the collection of fees from parents. The trustees appointed a very good new bursar and John Doherty himself started to phone parents who were in arrears. Many of the outstanding fees started to come in, while some parents whose financial position was such that they would never be able to catch up with what was owed, left the school. These actions were not popular in some quarters, including with some members of the College of Teachers, but they saved the school from going bankrupt.

John and his fellow trustees felt with some justification that the College was not sufficiently responsible or knowledgeable about the school finances to continue to decide on such matters; and so the trustees (who are in law responsible for everything that happens in the school) decided to reserve to themselves all decisions about finances, fee levels, bursaries, health and safety, property maintenance etc, while devolving responsibility for pedagogy and curriculum to the College. Their view was that the College did not have time or sufficient expertise to deal with many of the matters related to running the school, such as preparation for Ofsted inspections, employment issues, dealing with complaints and so on. I think it was at about this time that some of the teachers began to resent the work of the trustees, though I should also record that a previous body of trustees had felt it necessary to resign en masse some years earlier, following what they perceived to be persistent and prolonged non-cooperation from the College.

In 2009 John Doherty invited me to take up a new post at the school, that of education facilitator, with responsibility for many of those issues that the trustees felt that College could not look after adequately. I accepted this on a half-time basis so that I could continue with my SWSF work; but it soon became clear that each job in reality required full-time attention so after a while I had to choose between them. I decided to relinquish my SWSF role and concentrate on the job at RSSKL, which had the advantage of allowing me to be at home more often and also, as a full-time member of staff, entitled me to a discount on our daughter’s school fees – which was very helpful for our family finances.

Very soon after taking up the education facilitator post at RSSKL, I was thrown right in at the deep end – a phone call was received from the lead inspector announcing that Ofsted would be sending in an inspection team the following week. This, in the days when Ofsted gave 48 hours’ notice of inspection, meant a frantic, up-all-hours period of work for me to try to get ready. Needless to say, apart from the work of one retired class teacher, the school had made hardly any preparations for this inspection, and I had to fall back on paperwork that had been done for the previous inspection in 2006. Nor did many people on College show the slightest interest in helping me, although I was grateful to the retired class teacher and a couple of other teachers who did take the matter seriously and helped to write some updated material for the inspectors to read.

This Ofsted inspection was the last one to be carried out at the school by “official” Ofsted, all subsequent inspections over the next few years being done by the excellent and highly-experienced former HMIs from School Inspection Services Ltd. (SIS). As an aside, I was always bemused by those critics who suggested that Steiner schools had somehow secured for themselves a more lenient form of inspection by way of SIS taking on the Ofsted contract for the inspection of the independent Steiner schools; this is absolutely wrong. As someone who in later life briefly became a lay inspector with SIS, I can tell you that these ex-HMIs were absolutely the best inspectors I’ve come across – formidably experienced and highly knowledgeable, they knew exactly where any bodies were likely to be buried and they were assiduous in digging out all our weak points. They did this while also taking the trouble to inform themselves about Steiner Waldorf education, and they behaved with charm and courtesy throughout the inspection. They didn’t miss a thing, however, and in their feedback at the end they were not only forensic in their report of what they had seen but – and this is where they really scored –their intention was that the school should find the inspection as useful as possible in identifying areas for improvement. I honestly felt that it was a privilege to be inspected by these people.

This first Ofsted inspection in 2009, however, was not such a happy experience. The lead inspector did not seem to know much about Steiner education, although she had attended some kind of briefing about it, nor did she seem to be much impressed by what she had heard. She did, however, ask me to set up a meeting for all the teachers in the staff room on the day before the inspection proper began, so that she could explain more about the process and answer any questions that the teachers might have. I shall never forget the acute feeling of embarrassment I had when only a handful of teachers bothered to attend this meeting. It was a direct snub to Ofsted by most of the teachers and the lead inspector was keenly aware of it.

This first inspection led to the school being rated as “Satisfactory”, which in Ofsted terms actually means “not good enough.” It was a baptism of fire for me but it also gave some useful indications of those areas for improvement which needed attention. In most schools, this would be a relatively straightforward, although arduous, process. Between the end of one inspection and the onset of another, the school would be expected to work on those areas identified by the inspectors. At the next inspection, the inspectors would look to see what progress had been made on the areas previously highlighted.

At RSSKL, however, working on our weaknesses was not a straightforward or easy process. There was a mix of cultural and organisational factors which made it very much an uphill struggle. No teacher enjoys Ofsted inspections but at RSSKL there was a strong sense among some teachers that the state and its quangocrats in Ofsted should have nothing whatsoever to do with what the school was offering. This attitude was encouraged by one or two experienced teachers who should have known better, who would say absurd things in College meetings such as: “We should just refuse to let Ofsted through the doors – what could they do to us anyway?” Well, the teachers who thought like that now know only too well what Ofsted could do to them.

I used to try to get College to understand what was at stake by saying things like: “If you run a car, there is a legal framework you operate within – you need to have car insurance, a road tax disc and a MoT certificate of roadworthiness. If you run a school, there is also a legal framework within which you have to operate – you need to be aware of issues such as pupil safeguarding; you need to have Ofsted inspections, which means that they will want to see your lesson plans, pupil assessments and sit in on your lessons. You cannot avoid this. In schools as in life, you need to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and render unto God that which is God’s.” But too many teachers were not prepared to render unto Caesar that which the state required of them. Some of them seemed to have a problem with any kind of authority; I remember one upper school teacher devising a show for pupils to perform, which he called: “Ofsted – the musical.” The climactic moment of the piece was an Ofsted inspector being done to death with the copper rods from eurythmy lessons. All very amusing, no doubt, but utterly irresponsible and childish in people who had taken on a serious commitment to run the school as a collegiate.

As education facilitator, I was under a triple disadvantage: I was not a teacher; I had been appointed by trustees rather than College; I had no authority other than moral persuasion to compel staff to co-operate. I tried to explain to teachers that if the school decided to follow wholeheartedly the best practice recommendations of the SWSF Code of Practice, then we would not only be a really good Steiner school but we would also sail through future Ofsted inspections. I don’t think many of them heard me, or if they did, they usually felt there were more important priorities for them to discuss in their weekly teacher meetings.

I also had to spend a certain amount of my time defending and explaining the College of Teachers system to trustees and bending over backwards trying to make it work, because I believed that it does have the potential to offer some real advantages to a school and that, despite the problems, this was how a Steiner school should be organised. What I didn’t recognise sufficiently was that this should have been a two-way process requiring goodwill from the teachers and a willingness to work towards improvement. A few teachers had this but not the majority, who seemed to think that the way they had always done things was just fine.

Despite the many difficulties, I did make some progress – our next Ofsted inspection under SIS in 2011 rated us as “Good”. In hindsight, I should nevertheless have acknowledged to myself that the task was insuperable and recommended to the trustees that they should impose the appointment of a principal with a teaching background to run the school. This would have caused a huge ruckus at the time but it might have saved the school from subsequent closure. Perhaps even this would not have been enough; in my worst moments I felt that the only thing that would save the school would be to close it down, make all the teachers redundant and then re-open with a new structure, a new culture and new teacher contracts.

I have written elsewhere about my thoughts on a school trying to run itself via a College of Teachers but I can’t resist re-telling this anecdote: some years ago I held a vision-building workshop at RSSKL as part of our Inset Days. To help me, I invited a very experienced businessman and friend, Mick Crews, not only because of his track record in similar workshops for big companies but also because he liked what he had already heard of Steiner Waldorf schools. As part of our preparations, I explained to Mick the ways in which the school sought to manage itself through the College.   He listened very carefully and then he said: “It strikes me that, for your system to work, it requires a degree of personal integrity in the staff that you don’t find in any other walk of life”.

He was right, of course, and I’m sorry to say that I didn’t find that degree of personal integrity in the RSSKL College either. Some of the difficulties I came across were to do with the College’s failures to monitor teachers’ behaviour, to discipline members of staff or to handle complaints properly. There were one or two members of staff who in my view should not have been allowed to continue teaching. Everyone knew who they were, but it proved impossible to ease them out of the school. This was partly due to an endemic weakness of will and misplaced kindness but it was also partly down to what I call the “chumocracy” that ran the school. Teachers primarily thought of their colleagues as friends, which is admirable in one way but is not helpful in a school where professional standards must come before friendship.

Teachers must be prepared to report on their colleagues if they suspect anything less than ethical is taking place, and in really serious situations the College must support the disciplining, sacking and reporting of these colleagues to the local authority and the police, regardless of any feelings of friendship – because the needs and safety of the children must come first. I remember saying to College on one occasion that I had never felt so lonely as I did in my job as education facilitator. This was received with surprise and some indignation but it was how I felt. In that job, one could be friendly but not true friends with colleagues because there might come a time when, as once fell to me, it was necessary to suspend a teacher from the school, report his gross misconduct to the local authority and the police and then end his employment. This obviously had a huge impact on the man and his family, and was not calculated to make me popular with his friends in the school, who at first didn’t believe that he had done that of which he was accused.

There were other unpleasant things going on. A group of teachers and parents briefed by these teachers had come together in their opposition to the school’s property strategy, which was intended to improve the school’s buildings and facilities, including the Priory, which after Miss Cross’ death had eventually come into RSSKL’s ownership. This was a Grade II listed building which had been sorely neglected for many years to the point where English Heritage was sending us warning letters about the need to maintain it properly. Most of the school buildings were also in need of proper maintenance and no new buildings had been put up since the construction of the Gym in the early 1970s.

For reasons which I still don’t wholly understand, some teachers took against the property strategy, which they seemed to think was being imposed on them by trustees. RSSKL had used the Priory for teacher accommodation rather than for classrooms and there were several teachers and their families living there. Under the property strategy, which envisaged bringing the Priory back into use for teaching purposes, two or three families would have been asked to move elsewhere, but would have continued to enjoy the benefit of subsidised accommodation. All sorts of stories about this were told to parents, and then some of the parents began to circulate various documents and emails, alleging that there was something wrong with the administration of the school’s finances and that there was power-seeking and corruption in the trustees and the school management. When I reported on some of this to the whole school staff meeting, someone present secretly recorded my remarks and passed the recording to the cabal of parents. I subsequently received a threatening letter from one of these parents, a high-powered lawyer, delivered by motorcycle courier for maximum dramatic effect. There was much, much more going on but even today it is probably not prudent for me to give further details. The person who had leaked the recording was never discovered. Clearly, any basis of trust for collegial management of the school had broken down irretrievably. Suffice it to say that in this atmosphere of sabotage and betrayal, it was impossible for the school to function properly or to deal effectively with these attacks.

I urged the College to tell these parents that they must desist in their undermining activities or else they would be asked to remove their children from the school. This the College did not do, being by this time so weak and divided that it was incapable of effective action. I came to realise that there are some teachers and many parents who, like children, need to understand where the boundaries of acceptable behaviour lie. When adults don’t find any boundaries and keep pushing, still with no response, then just like children, it becomes deeply worrying for them and they cause even more disturbance. Through the agitation and deep unpleasantness towards some members of staff and trustees from some teachers and parents, the property strategy fell by the wayside and a really good opportunity for the school to upgrade and improve its whole estate for the benefit of the children and teachers alike was lost. With the closure of the school, those teachers who currently live in the Priory or elsewhere on school premises will soon be facing the loss of their homes. It could and should have been very different.

After I left the school in 2014, I cut all ties and made no attempt to stay in touch, sickened by my experiences there. I have not kept up with all the twists and turns of more recent events and have no comment to make on them. I know, however, that the College did not replace me despite some desultory attempts to do so; and the school then managed to fail six Ofsted inspections within 18 months.  Eventually the trustees appointed a principal (at around three times the average teacher salary) who specialised in turning around failing schools. Sadly, it was all too little, too late.

I looked online at the final Ofsted inspection report of 10^thMay 2018 that led to the school’s closure, which listed a catalogue of continuing failures. I noted the name of the second inspector on this occasion; it was the same person who had been lead inspector during my first traumatic experience of Ofsted, the woman who had been snubbed in the staff room by so many of the teachers.

What conclusions do I draw from this whole sorry story?

First of all and despite my own difficult experiences as a member of staff, I am very sad that a school which provided a good education to my own daughter and to so many other children over the last seventy years, has had to close because of the weakness, cowardice and malice of teachers and parents who were unable to see what the consequences of their own behaviour would be for the school. While I was experiencing these difficulties at the school, my daughter was gaining three A* grades at her A-level exams and going on to a successful university career. There were some really good teachers at the school, and the exam results were much better than the national average. The Waldorf curriculum taught alongside the exam curriculum at the school produced articulate, well-rounded and well-socialised young people who go on to do very well by society and in life. I want to celebrate what the school did well and remind myself that not all Steiner Waldorf schools should be damned because of RSSKL.

Second, in my view no Steiner school nowadays should attempt to run itself with a College of Teachers as its main management body. It is unrealistic to expect a school to be run satisfactorily by a body of teachers meeting once a week after a long day of teaching, even with a system of mandates running alongside it.  The College of Teachers is worse than useless as a school management body in today’s conditions, despite anything that Rudolf Steiner may have had to say in its favour nearly a century ago. I don’t think it even worked very well in Steiner’s own time, when despite recruiting leading talents from across Europe to become the first teachers in the Stuttgart Waldorf School, the school experienced all sorts of problems and never managed to come to a definitive form and role for its College – and throughout it all, Steiner still found it necessary to act as the de facto headmaster. Where the College is still worthwhile is in areas such as pedagogical discussions, child study and the sharing of research; and where the College includes administration staff as well, it can help to establish a sense that the school is the responsibility of everyone, and all staff whatever their job titles, are educators. This sense of common purpose was never achieved at RSSKL. To run a truly complex organisation like a school in today’s regulatory environment, I think it is necessary for a principal and senior management team to work alongside the College to achieve the best results.

What of the role of Ofsted in all this? I have no means of knowing for sure but I strongly suspect that there was some kind of turf war going on between “official” Ofsted and the former HMIs of SIS Ltd.  Long after I had left the school, when parents began writing to Ofsted to complain about the way the school had handled their safeguarding concerns in connection with a teacher (as they were fully entitled to do), it seems likely that Ofsted saw it as an opportunity to step in and over-ride the inspectors from SIS, who would have been perfectly capable of dealing with the matter. But given everything that was happening at the school, it was inevitable that Ofsted would at some point have to pull the plug. I recently met a parent and former trustee of RSSKL, who said: “Thank God for Ofsted – and I never thought I would find myself saying that.” This was of course before the school was forced to close.

A major weakness of the Steiner schools in the UK is the fact that the exceptional autonomy of each Steiner school makes coordinated responses to movement-wide problems very difficult. This lack of centralised authority also makes it almost impossible to fix problems that individual schools have been unable to solve for themselves. RSSKL has now tarnished the name of Steiner Waldorf education far and wide – the BBC and national and local newspapers have carried extensive reports of the problems, leading figures in education have been quoted as saying that this should be a wake-up call for government to intervene, and of course the whole fiasco has been a gift to online Waldorf critics.  One looks in vain to Dornach, the Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain, or the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship (now somewhat reduced in staffing and resources) for a response.

Yet a response and positive corrective actions are surely needed. There are, for example, real deficiencies in some of the Steiner Waldorf teacher training courses. If I were recruiting teachers for a Steiner school now, I would do my best to employ only people who already had acquired QTS (qualified teacher status) and who had then decided to convert to the Steiner Waldorf system. That way a school would have some chance of getting gifted teachers who are also familiar with lesson planning, pupil assessment, record-keeping, classroom discipline etc., and all those issues on which RSSKL was judged to be failing.

I’m concerned that, because they have not sufficiently evolved and developed their administration, professional practice or the curriculum, the independent fee-paying Steiner schools are slowly declining. In recent years schools in Aberdeen, Canterbury, Glasgow and now Kings Langley have closed. It is possible that more will follow. There are of course also some excellent independent Steiner schools such as Edinburgh, Elmfield, Michael Hall, Wynstones and others; but my main hope for the future of Steiner Waldorf education in the UK now resides with the publicly-funded Steiner academy schools at Hereford, Exeter, Frome and Bristol. It is ironic that SWSF was criticised by many in the independent schools for supporting Steiner academies, on the grounds that public funding was likely to lead to government interference with the Waldorf curriculum, or that free Steiner schools would threaten the existence of the fee-paying schools. What these people forgot is that the government can and will intervene at any school, whatever its status, which is perceived as failing. Because the Steiner academy schools receive public funding, they are held much more accountable by government – but because they are now part of the maintained sector, they are seen as a valid part of the pluralistic education system in England in a way that the independent schools never managed to achieve. Not the least of RSSKL’s disasters is that it makes it far less likely that any government will wish to allow any more publicly-funded Steiner academy schools to be created.

My final conclusion is that to hold today to the letter of what Steiner did, rather than seek to express the essence of what he was really about, is to doom your school to irrelevance. I recently found a quotation from Karl König, founder of the Camphill Movement, which put this rather well: “Tradition is nurturing the flame, not worshipping the ashes.”

Source: https://anthropopper.com/2018/07/29/death-of-a-steiner-school/

According to Rudolf Steiner, life in the ordinary world is, in many ways, a hollow sham. The physical universe is harsh and cold. The daily grind is oppressive. Descent to earthly incarnation weakens our ties to the spirit realm. Steiner cited with approval a line from Goethe: 

“[Y]ou are only a dreary guest on the dark earth.” [1] 

Humanity is in pain, Steiner said. He described “the longing human soul in its yearning, tormented emptiness” [2] and he offered his own teachings as the antidote: 

“[W]e may point to spiritual science [i.e., his teachings: Anthroposophy] as a bearer of the redemption of human longing … [S]piritual science now provides what tempestuous but also woeful human beings have sought for a long time.” [3]

Things are worse than ever in the modern age, Steiner suggested, and he knew the reason: Our thinking is badly fouled up. Our values are wrong. And much of this is the result of modern science. Steiner called his own doctrines “spiritual science,” claiming that he used clairvoyance to objectively study the spirit realm. Consequently, he sometimes affirmed science and scientific thinking. More often, however, he denounced all sciences except his own. 

Fundamentally, Anthroposophy is antiscientific. Consider how crazy the modern, scientific point of view really is, according to Steiner:

“The physicist imagines that each body consists of an infinite number of immeasurable small parts, like atoms. They are not in contact with each other, but they are separated by small interstices. They, in the turn, unite to larger forms, the molecules, which still cannot be discerned by the eye. Only when an infinite number of molecules unite, we get what our senses perceive as bodies… 

“Therefore, the modern physicist says: in reality, nothing exists except swinging, moving atoms; everything else is merely a creation of my brain, formed by it when it is touched by the movement in the outer world.

“I do not have to paint how dismal such a view of the world is.” [4]

In offering us a cure for our spiritual sufferings — a cure that would offset the dismal scientific view — Steiner was by no means alone. Many other clerics, theologians, mystics, and gurus have had the same aim, and many of them have attracted far larger followings than Steiner has. But for anyone interested in Waldorf schools, examining Steiner’s teachings is essential, and those teachings must be recognized as a proposed, mystical antidote to the ills of the modern, scientific age. 

We all would like to live in a world where we feel comfortably secure, warmly loved, and purposeful. Science describes a rather different reality: We live on a small planet orbiting a nondescript little star, far from the center of our galaxy; and our galaxy is but one of innumerable galaxies; as intelligent beings, we may be alone in a vast, dark universe; and nature is indifferent to us, even at times hostile; and we descended from apes; and our bodies are really just biological machines, made up of molecules behaving more or less randomly; and these molecules, in turn, are made up of atoms behaving more or less randomly; and at the subatomic level, there is chaos and indeterminacy; and, and, and… 

Most people find these scientific propositions disagreeable. Many are horrified, appalled, aghast. (There is another side to science, of course. Some scientific work is distinctly inspiring. Think of  the splendors captured in photos taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, for instance.) It is undeniable that as science progresses, humanity’s claim that it occupies a central place in the cosmos becomes less and less plausible. [5] In this sense, the need many people feel for a more spiritual vision grows ever greater. Steiner’s solution was to serve up a dizzyingly intricate description of a universe teeming with spiritual powers and beings, a universe profoundly attentive to humanity, a universe in which dull, daily reality fades away. Our real lives, he taught, occur in the transcendent realms of the spirit, and he offered to acquaint us with those realms.

Steiner said we have been led astray both by modern science and, more generally, by materialism. In using the latter term, he did not mean lust for material possessions or wealth. He meant the belief that the material or physical universe is all that exists — the belief, in other words, that the laws science has discovered for physical reality extend everywhere, throughout the universe, and offer a complete description of the universe. Steiner argued that science does a reasonably good job of describing superficial conditions in the immediate here-and-now, but he denied that the same conditions exist elsewhere. He said the findings of physical science do not apply to the distant past, or to the distant future, or to the many levels of nonphysical reality. The material realm, he argued, is a temporary, unusual condition, something that evolved out of spiritual reality and that will soon be replaced by a new, higher spiritual reality. Moreover, Steiner taught, we are unable to correctly perceive the underlying truths of the physical here-and-now if we rely on our senses and brains — physical science is, in this sense, useless.

Our life on Earth is generally ruled by illusion, Steiner said. Our brains and senses cannot penetrate the veil of illusion. Steiner borrowed the Oriental term “maya” for the darkness in which he said most people are caught, [6] and he attributed this darkness to Ahriman, who is one of the two chief demons in Steiner’s theology:

“Ahriman infused into human observation something like a dark smoke cloud that prevents penetration to the spiritual. Through Ahriman’s agency man is enmeshed in lies, in maya, in illusion.“ [7]

Steiner differentiated between the Eastern and Western understanding of maya:

“Buddhism emphasizes again and again that the outer world is Maya, illusion. Christianity, on the contrary, says: Man may indeed believe that what he sees of the outer world is an illusion, but that is because his organs are so constituted that he cannot see through the external veil to the spiritual world. The outer world is not an illusion; the illusion has its source in the limitations of human seeing … [H]uman development through a series of incarnations must be seen as a means whereby man can regain, in a Christian sense, his spirit-eyes and spirit-ears [i.e., clairvoyance and clairaudience] in order to see the external world as it really is. Repeated earth-lives are therefore not meaningless: they are the path which will enable man to look at the outer world — from which Buddhism wishes to liberate him — and to see it irradiated by the spirit. To overcome the physical appearance of the world by acquiring the spiritual vision that man does not yet possess [i.e., “exact” clairvoyance], and to dispel the human error whereby the outer world can seem to be only Maya — that is the innermost impulse of Christianity.” [8] 

In this statement, as in many others, what Steiner means by “Christianity” is actually his own body of doctrines, Anthroposophy — which most Christians would find quite alien to their faith. [9] But the main point is that Steiner professed to offer a system of perception and cognition that transcends the limitations of our senses and brains. Through Anthroposophy, we can dispel the falsehoods of Ahriman.

Steiner claimed to perceive the outlines of human evolution. He said that we have progressed from primitive forms of consciousness to ever higher and more accurate forms, culminating for now in Anthroposophy. He argued that physical science, too, has evolved. By the 19th century, it had reached a high plateau, and it produced results of real value to mankind during that period. But its time is now past. In the modern world, Steiner said, spiritual truth is flowing once again and physical science must be overcome to enable us to apprehend spiritual truth. Science and the material world are slated for retirement.

“[T]he task of the previous epoch was to find natural science. At that time the laws of nature were good if they were rightly used by man to build up external world conceptions. But there is nothing absolutely good or bad in this external world of Maya. In our time the laws of Nature would be bad and evil, were they still to be used to build up a world conception at a time when spiritual life is flowing into the sense world. These words are not to be taken as directed against what past ages have done; they are directed against what wants to remain as it was in earlier ages and will not put itself at the service of the new revelation.” [10] 

The “new revelation” can be found in Anthroposophy, which Steiner called “spiritual science.” But Anthroposophy actually is — as his words suggest — a mystical religion that devalues real science. [11]

II

Steiner taught that the corrupting influence of scientific, materialistic thinking spreads outward into all spheres of human life, including philosophy:

“Nietzsche was impelled to bring up in purely spiritual fashion everything which he thought or experienced in the depth of his soul. To create a world-concept from the spiritual events in which the soul itself participates – this was the tendency of his thought. But the positivistic world conception of his age, the age of natural science, swept in upon him. In this conception there was nothing but the purely materialistic world, void of spirit.” [12]

The blight of scientific, materialistic thinking extends even further, all the way into mainstream religion, Steiner said. (In the following quotation, the term “Christian” clearly does not refer to Anthroposophy but to orthodox Christian denominations.)

“The brain is an instrument for purely intellectual apprehension. Intellectualism and materialistic thinking are one and the same, for all the thinking that goes on in science, in theology, in the sphere of modern Christian consciousness — all of it is the product of the human brain alone, is materialistic. This manifests itself, on the one hand, in the empty formalism of belief; on the other, in Bolshevism [sic: emphasis by Steiner] … [T]he materialistic brain represents a process of decay: materialistic thinking unfolds only through processes of destruction, death-processes, which are taking place in the brain.” [13]

According to Steiner, materialistic thinking — that is, thinking that relies on the material organ called the brain — will doom humanity, creating wholly materialistic human beings, unless we find a spiritualistic remedy. Lacking spiritual truth — that is, lacking Anthroposophy — humanity may cut itself off completely from the spirit. This would be lead to our utter destruction.

“The materialists of to-day would surely protest, if they were to be looked upon as prophets. Nevertheless they are prophets … If no preventive measures are taken, then the conditions which the materialists describe will really arise; these will then be reality … [I]f their materialistic world-conception were to triumph, the conditions which I have described to you would have to arise. The materialistic world-conception MUST NOT [sic] triumph! “ [14]

Steiner considered this issue so important that, in discussing it, he employed a term he usually avoided: “sin.” Materialistic thinking — which as we have seen is associated with maya caused by Ahriman — is sinful. 

“The essential point is to change our ways of thinking and of feeling — otherwise we cannot reach a really spiritual way of looking at things. This gives us an outlook, a perspective, that will help us to achieve the rise from sin as opposed to the fall into sin.” [15] 

Materialistic thinking, science, is thus evil. It is sinful. And it will lead to our ruination.

The essence of the sin Steiner described is reliance on the brain. Steiner taught that the brain, being a merely physical organ, is incapable for real cognition. It can learn nothing of ultimate importance. The nerves and brain are merely a physical expression of real cognition, which occurs elsewhere. In this sense, “materialistic thinking” is not so much the content of sinful thoughts as the use of the wrong organ in our efforts to think. The use of the mere, material brain leads us into error.

“The beautiful structure of the outer cortex is, in a sense, a degeneration. It represents more of a digestive system in the outer portions of the brain. People need not be particularly proud of the mantle of the brain; it is more like a degeneration … [T]he brain and nerve system have nothing at all to do with actual cognition; they are only the expression of cognition in the physical system.” [16]

Actual cognition, according to Steiner, is clairvoyance, and it does not occur in the brain. Here is Steiner discussing the preparation for occult initiation:

“Preparation consists in a strict and definite cultivation of the life of thought and feeling, through which the psycho-spiritual body becomes equipped with higher senses and organs of activity in the same way that natural forces have fitted the physical body with organs built out of indeterminate living matter … Thoughts and feelings of a new kind and unknown before will be noticed uprising in the soul … And just as the eyes and ears of the physical body are built by natural forces out of living matter, so will the organs of clairvoyance build themselves out of the feelings and thoughts thus evoked.” [17] 

Real cognition, Steiner said, comes to us from the spirit realm. Living here in the physical universe, incarnated within physical bodies, we do not produce real thoughts, thoughts that reveal spiritual truth. Rather, the gods produce real thoughts, and our brains are receptacles  — imperfect receptacles — for the gods’ thoughts. To truly apprehend the gods’ thoughts, to attain real cognition, we must develop better, finer organs than our physical brains: We must develop incorporeal organs of clairvoyance.

III

Steiner pinned his teachings on the rejection of science, the brain, and intellect — that is, real knowledge of the real world. Instead, he advocated clairvoyance (which does not exist [18]), which he said operates through ethereal organs. This is moonshine, yet it is the essence of Steiner’s teachings.

Any worldview that warns us away from the reasoning powers of our brains must be suspect. It deserves our deepest skepticism or, indeed, it deserves utter rejection. Anthroposophy encourages us to turn our backs on truth and the hard-won fruits of human scholarly, scientific, philosophical, and, yes, theological progress. It encourages us to reject real knowledge and replace it with fantasy, delusion, and ignorance. The only sane response to this advice is a firm No Thanks.

Science is mankind’s highest attainment. Raising ourselves laboriously from millennia of ignorance and superstition, we have begun to gain genuine information about our surroundings and about ourselves. This is not something we should lightly toss away. It is our finest legacy and our greatest hope. And yet Steiner would junk it in favor of mystical claptrap.

We all yearn for the transcendent. We all chafe at the limitations of our lives and conditions, our unfulfilled desires, our mortality. We all wish for something more — we want to rise from dreariness to joyous fulfillment. But it should be perfectly clear that we will solve none of our problems by rejecting real knowledge and turning to fanciful illusions instead. We must stand firmly on the truth, whether or not we find the truth agreeable. We must have the courage to face reality and make the best of it. Running away into fantasy solves nothing.

If we are to improve our lot, we will do it by turning to precisely the things Steiner wanted us to discount: our brains, rationality, science, and our expanding store of real information — real knowledge. This is the true path, the upward ascent from blindness to sight, from falsehood to truth. We have been led upward by the great scholars, scientists, philosophers, and theologians of the past, incandescent minds who pushed back the darkness. We should build on their gifts to us, not squander them. We have it in our power to improve ourselves, if only we will have the courage and intellectual honesty to do so.

Source: https://sites.google.com/site/waldorfwatch/steiners-specific

Here’s a primer, a guide to clues you can look for when evaluating Waldorf schools. I’ve written it with a specific audience in mind: my family and myself as we were years ago. This is the advice I wish someone had given us when my parents were thinking about sending me to a Waldorf school. This is what we would have been well advised to consider.

BACKGROUND

A primer should take nothing for granted, so let’s start with the basics. (If this background material is familiar to you, please skip ahead to the next section: “Overview”.)

Rudolf Steiner was a mystic. He invented his own religion, which he called Anthroposophy (pronounced “an-throw-POS-o-fee” — the word means human wisdom). He pieced his religion together from bits and pieces of other spiritualistic systems, primarily Theosophy — which is, itself, a syncretic blend of faiths. 

Steiner claimed that Anthroposophy is a science, not a religion, but this is just one of many claims he made that are demonstrably false. Anthroposophy is a belief system that is designed to lead people to spiritual salvation. The path toward salvation as laid out by Steiner involves gaining spiritual insight through the use of clairvoyance. Steiner prescribed special prayers, spiritual exercises, and other spiritually oriented activities to use along the way. Without a doubt, this all adds up to religion. [If you want to investigate this further, see “Is Anthroposophy a Religion?”. To consider whether Anthroposophy is a science, see “Steiner’s ‘Science’”.]

Not long after he created his religion, Steiner set up the first Waldorf school — in Germany, during the early part of the 20th century. There was a direct link between Steiner’s religion and his plans for the school. In fact, Steiner wanted to use the school to spread the religion. When he realized that his efforts seemed to be paying off, he said this:

“One of the most important facts about the background of the Waldorf School is that we were in a position to make the anthroposophical movement a relatively large one. The anthroposophical movement has become a large one.” [1] 

Steiner’s clear meaning is that by setting up the school — which evolved into today’s Waldorf school system — he was able to spread Anthroposophy.

Steiner laid down distinct standards for Waldorf faculty members. He told the teachers at the first Waldorf school this: 

“As Waldorf teachers, we must be true anthroposophists in the deepest sense of the word in our innermost feeling.” [2] 

On another occasion, he explicitly linked the school’s spiritual work with the staffing policies of the school: 

“As far as our school is concerned, the actual spiritual life can be present only because its staff consists of anthroposophists.” [3] 

For Steiner, the “actual spiritual life” or real spirituality belongs in a Waldorf school, and it can be there only because the staff members embrace his occult doctrines — they are Anthroposophists.

Here’s how Steiner summarized his intentions for Waldorf teachers: 

“Among the faculty, we must certainly carry within us the knowledge that we are not here for our own sakes, but to carry out the divine cosmic plan. We should always remember that when we do something, we are actually carrying out the intentions of the gods, that we are, in a certain sense, the means by which that streaming down from above will go out into the world.” [4]

Let that sink in. Waldorf teachers are supposed to carry out the intentions of the “gods.” Steiner taught that there are many gods, not just one; he claimed to know what the gods want, what their “divine cosmic plan” is; and he told Waldorf teachers that their job is to fulfill that plan. The task of the faculty, in other words, is messianic. In spreading Anthroposophy, Waldorf teachers take the gods’ influences and send them out into the world. They do this primarily through their educational work, fostering “the actual spiritual life” in the souls of their students. They are missionaries.

Steiner’s intentions may be acceptable to parents who want their children to be brought up as junior Anthroposophists. But parents who don’t embrace Anthroposophy should think carefully before becoming involved in a Waldorf school. Steiner was, sometimes, reasonably open about the role Anthroposophy should play in a Waldorf school: 

“Anthroposophy will be in the school.” [5] 

But on many other occasions, he told Waldorf teachers to hide their beliefs from outsiders, including the students’ parents. The teachers should work on their students’ souls, but they should so this quietly, indirectly. Steiner knew his belief system contained elements that would turn off many people and even incite opposition, so he urged his followers to be cagey. [See “Secrets“.]

Steiner told Waldorf teachers to keep quiet about many things, including the prayers he wanted students to recite each morning. 

“We also need to speak about a prayer. I ask only one thing of you. You see, in such things everything depends upon the external appearances. Never call a verse a prayer, call it an opening verse before school. Avoid allowing anyone to hear you, as a faculty member, using the word ‘prayer.’” [6] 

In a more shocking example, he told Waldorf teachers to conceal a particularly appalling doctrine: 

“That little girl L.K. in the first grade must have something really 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 … 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.” [7] 

Here in the Waldorf school, we believe that some people are subhuman. But keep quiet, Waldorf teachers. Don’t tell outsiders what we believe. Be circumspect as you go about your work, promoting Anthroposophy.

These were Rudolf Steiner’s stated intentions. His intentions have not always been fulfilled. Not all teachers at Waldorf schools today are Anthroposophists. Not all Waldorf schools today promote Anthroposophy vigorously. But many do. The problem for parents is determining which do.

If a Waldorf school today wants to follow Steiner’s intentions, the teachers will almost certainly not proselytize openly for Anthroposophy within the school’s walls. But in subtle ways, Anthroposophy will fill the school. The curriculum will probably emphasize myths, and a particular kind of dance, and a special sort of painting, and spirit-affecting music and books and activities… Powerful, subliminal forms of persuasion will probably be used to indirectly convey such doctrines as reincarnation, karma, spiritual evolution, magic, Atlantis, astrology… Academic subjects will probably be downplayed, while considerable class time will be spent on knitting, gardening, woodworking, playing simple woodwind instruments…

Those are some of the clues that can reveal a Waldorf school’s real purposes. Below is a more inclusive list. I’ll give you the list twice, first in a quick overview, then in detail.

OVERVIEW

Here is a series of questions that should help reveal whether or not a school is deeply committed to Rudolf Steiner’s occultism. If you are considering becoming involved with a Waldorf school, I would encourage you to seek answers to these questions.*

1. Does the school call itself nondenominational or nonsectarian, but does it contain indications of religious faith?

2. Do the teachers require or urge students to recite a morning verse? Does the “verse” address God? Who wrote it?

3. Does the school emphasize Christ? But do you also detect hints of unbiblical beliefs?

4. Do students at the school study various religions?

5. Does the curriculum at the school include extensive study of myths and legends?

6. Is there a pleasant emphasis on art, but with a spiritualistic flavor? 

7. Do the students do wet-on-wet watercolor painting?

8. Is eurythmy performed at the school?

9. Are academic subjects given short shrift? 

10. Are there indications that intellect is downplayed and other kinds of thinking — such as imagination — are stressed instead? 

11. Is there an antiscientific bias at the school? 

12. Is alternative medicine present in or around the school?

13. Are there hints of racism, perhaps buried deep but still detectable?

14. Is European culture, especially German culture, seen as superior to all others?

15. Can you detect an unusual degree of sexism in the school’s policies or practices?

16. Do the teachers divide the students according to “temperament”?

17. Are there any strangely suggestive features in the school’s building, grounds, or paraphernalia? 

18. Are there intimations that evolution is real, but very different from Darwin’s version?

19. How are animals discussed or viewed?

20. Are students led to feel that the physical world is illusory? Are there indications that nature is deemed holy and yet false?

21. Are there gnome statuettes or dolls in any classrooms at the school?

22. How are other worlds discussed or portrayed?

23. Are there indications of astrology or related fallacies in the school?

24. Are there hints of belief in reincarnation? What about karma? 

25. Are there suggestions that children have memories of the spirit realm? 

26. Beyond whatever the previous questions exposed, do you detect signs of occultism?

27. Are there hints that the universe may have more than one god?

If careful investigation convinces you that a particular Waldorf school passes muster on these questions — if no worrisome discoveries pop up — then that school may be just fine as far as Waldorf schools go.

But if the questions lead you to troubling disclosures, then you may want to find a different school for your children.

Below are pointers that may help you penetrate to the truth behind these questions.

* The first version of this page appeared online some years ago. Waldorf schools have had plenty of time to absorb it and similar materials, and to adjust the face they present to the world accordingly. Still, the information and suggestions offered here should remain pertinent for parents making their own inquiries.

CLUES, REDUX

Here is the same list of topics, taken more slowly this time. Essentially, all of these topics down boil to one large question about any Waldorf school that catches your attention: To what degree is the school committed to Rudolf Steiner’s occult doctrines?

As I proceed down the list, I will include many quotations from Steiner and others. Some of these quotations are hard to grasp, but I think you will find the effort worthwhile. Such quotations may be your best tool for investigating a Waldorf school. Take such quotations to the school and ask for explanations. If you are dissatisfied with the answers you receive, you may have learned something essential. A tip: Don’t settle for simple denials — press for full, persuasive answers. Remember that Steiner told his followers to guard their secrets.

For clarity, I will add some explanatory notes to the quotations, and I will chop out some of Steiner’s repetitive or confusing language. This editing will make Steiner’s statements clearer, but I promise I will not distort Steiner’s meaning. You can check me by going to the sources I cite in the endnotes. I will tell you exactly where I found each quotation.

Source: https://sites.google.com/view/waldorfwatchwing/clues

The following is excerpted from 

“Why Waldorf Programs are Unsuitable for Public Funding” 

by former Waldorf parent Dan Dugan.

For more, see 

http://www.waldorfcritics.org/articles/dugan_dan_csr0202j.htm

I enrolled my son in the San Francisco Waldorf School halfway through the sixth grade. I was very impressed with the school. I liked very much the way art is integrated into the curriculum in Waldorf … When Roman History is studied, for example, students will draw and paint Romans, write about them, sing, dance, and act out plays about them.

One day while visiting the school, I browsed through some books by Rudolf Steiner that they had for sale. I saw some very strange things about “astral bodies” and “root races.” I asked my son’s teacher whether these subjects were taught in the classroom. She assured me that though the teachers studied Steiner, only Steiner’s teaching methods were used in the classroom, and Steiner’s philosophy wasn’t taught to the children. I learned later that this is a standard disclaimer, and it is far from the truth. I should have known better, but I was so in love with the facade of the school that I looked the other way.

Over the year and a half my son was in the school, I became increasingly disturbed about three things:

1. Weird science. In a chemistry lesson, the teacher burned different substances … No mention was made of oxidation or, for that matter, any chemistry at all. In a lesson on the physics of light, they were taught that…[w]hite light is a unity and cannot be divided into the colors of the spectrum … I thought perhaps these mistakes were due to the ignorance of particular teachers, but when I obtained Waldorf curriculum guides, I discovered that the inadequate and erroneous science was part of the Waldorf system.

2. Racism. I was shocked to pick up a Steiner book for sale at the school and read: “If the blonds and blue-eyed people die out, the human race will become increasingly dense….”  Why would a school in San Francisco in 1988 be promoting 1920s German racism?

3. Quack medicine. An “Anthroposophical physician” gave a lecture to the parents on “Anthroposophical medicine.”  It was classic quackery … For example, Anthroposophical medicine doesn’t believe in germ theory, teaching instead that the real causes of infectious diseases are karmic or spiritual….

I started speaking up at meetings and lectures about these problems. I requested a meeting with the College of Teachers, the committee of senior teachers that ran the school. They were “too busy.” Instead, a committee of three teachers was delegated to give me an ultimatum: “You don’t have to believe what we believe, but if you are going to talk about your disagreements with the other parents, you will have to leave.” We left.

It was all a very strange experience for me, and I decided to express my concerns to the other parents at the school by writing a couple of articles and distributing them to the school address list. I wanted to be sure of what I was talking about, so I bought some Steiner books, did research in the library, and attended more Anthroposophical lectures.

…Waldorf education started to move into public schools. A Waldorf school opened in the public school system in Milwaukee in 1991. Soon after, the charter school movement started up, and Waldorf charters started opening. My studies took on urgency. I felt obligated to use what I knew to oppose the use of public funds for this religious system….

Then the Internet appeared and changed everything. I was kicked out of the official Waldorf discussion list for being critical and bringing up embarrassing topics. Not one to be silenced, I started an alternative list called Waldorf-Critics.

During the years my children attended a Waldorf school I was constantly curious about the ways things happened there. Eventually, I found that my questions might be answered more clearly if I learned more about the foundation of the pedagogy. So began many long nights studying Waldorf Education and Steiner via the Internet. At any Waldorf school anywhere in the world Rudolf Steiner is held in high esteem — in a pedagogy where authority is very important, no words are more important than those of the founder of this movement. In a Waldorf school when someone mentions, “Steiner says . . . ” it means stop, listen and learn. The term is frequently used to illustrate a lesson for parents.

During the course of my research I noticed a disturbing pattern emerging at my children’s Waldorf School. Problems arise . . . parents ask questions . . . parents become upset . . . parents take children out of the school. I wondered why. The Internet enables us to connect with hundreds of other Waldorf parents from different schools around the globe. To my astonishment I discovered similar disturbing patterns with many parents from other schools. Was this a coincidence or was there a logical explanation? Why are parents so often frustrated with events at Waldorf schools? Why do they feel their questions and concerns are not dealt with? Why do parents feel that these schools are not “nonsectarian schools” as is promised in Waldorf outreach material and handbooks? After joining a Waldorf school parents have many questions . . . what is all this we hear about karma and reincarnation? What do you mean by “soul work?” Why are prayers recited daily but called verses? What are these Anthroposophy study groups for parents? I thought Anthroposophy was not in the school? And . . .who was Steiner and what was his reason for founding the Waldorf movement?

The Internet is a marvelous tool. Many years ago while surfing the Net for information on Waldorf something bothered me. The wealth of information available was staggering and one could easily spend a lifetime studying. Always, however, as I made my way down the Internet alleyways of Steiner and Waldorf, acutely aware of the problems and miscommunication between parents and schools (our own school included), something was itching the back of my mind. During my many months of research families continued to leave our school and I saw the same pattern continue with families leaving other Waldorf schools. Why? Why would parents enroll their children in a school, full of excitement and good will, spend so much time and money for the school — only to leave upset? Many families . . . many schools. More research.

I began to understand that Rudolf Steiner and his Anthroposophical followers are on a mission. This mission involves karma and reincarnation and is the foundation of Waldorf Education. The occult nature of Anthroposophy is clearly entwined in teacher training and the Waldorf curriculum. Anthroposophy and Waldorf are inexorably linked — they are one in the same.

During my research — for many reasons and like many other parents — we felt we had to pull our children from their Waldorf School. My research became more intense. I knew there must be an answer to the communication problem Waldorf schools experience. How can parents not see the Waldorf ? Anthroposophy/occult connection before they begin their Waldorf experience? In the back corners of my mind was the missing piece to the puzzle. Many in the Waldorf movement refer to Waldorf “communities.” I suspected the problem had something to do with communication — the lifeblood of any real “community.”

I decided to look at Waldorf School web sites. I had previously looked at a few sites (at one point we had considered moving to another Waldorf School). This time, however, my goal was to simply see what the schools themselves said about Rudolf Steiner, the founder of the movement. I imagined myself as a prospective new Waldorf parent looking at each school’s site and what I might glean from information therein. Parents would want to know about the founder of the movement and could find this information here. Many Waldorf schools have web sites. If these schools are like our local Waldorf school their web sites are similar to their pamphlets and other promotional material. By perusing various school sites I should have an accurate picture of Steiner, his pedagogy and his connection to those schools. I looked at school web sites in the USA to find each school’s description of Rudolf Steiner. I started with schools beginning with “A” and thought I might go until the “P’s” before I found a pattern. I was wrong. I stopped at “D.” Eleven Waldorf schools. The pattern was crystal clear.

While many schools use slightly different words to describe the pedagogy the message is always similar. According to the school web sites Waldorf is basically an arts based, nonsectarian education attempting to nurture the child in a gentle atmosphere. And who, according to these Waldorf schools, was Rudolf Steiner?

Incredibly, at each school web site there was no mention of Rudolf Steiner’s connection or belief in Occultism, reincarnation, karma or soul work. In short virtually everything Steiner believed in and worked from and towards with regards to Anthroposophy and Waldorf Education — the essence of the man — is missing from these sites. Instead, from the sum of eleven Waldorf School web sites, we are told that Rudolf Steiner was a — teacher (mentioned 1 time), an architect (1), thinker (1), scholar (1), educator (5), artist (6) and a scientist (7).

This misrepresentation of Rudolf Steiner and his work seems to be at the root of the Waldorf communication problem. We find a much more accurate portrait of Rudolf Steiner at other sites on the Internet. Only a few Anthroposophy sites are needed to find a completely different description of the same man.

…Unfortunately, the facade of Waldorf Education is very appealing to parents and until recently very few people have demanded accountability.

How can Rudolf Steiner be described as an educator, a philosopher, an artist and a scientist by the Waldorf movement when the truth is he was clearly a turn of the century occultist? Anthroposophists know all about Steiner while new Waldorf parents had better do more than believe the public relations. At this point in time it is a case of buyer beware.

Dear Highland Hall College of Teachers,

I am in receipt of your letter dated June 24, 2005 (I assume you meant 2004). Your indictment of me begins with the statement “The College of Highland Hall Waldorf School has decided that the school cannot re-enroll [my daughter] for the 2004-2005 school year. This decision was made not because of [my daughter]’s behavior, but because of your behavior toward the class teacher and the school as a whole. The College sees that the class needs a space to heal after the past difficult year.”

First, let me make it clear that I am proud of my behavior and of my integrity. Many parents and former parents have written and called me to thank me for my part in exposing the class teacher and for taking the heat from the school. One former parent expressed that only now that the teacher is no longer at Highland Hall, her child has felt the necessary closure required for healing.

…Your letter further states “You have repeatedly sent blind emails to community members making negative statements about the former class teacher, the Evaluation Committee, and members of the administration, in direct conflict with our communication protocol.”

I pointed out the truth. The truth reflected negatively on the class teacher, the Evaluation Committee and the members of the administration — this is their fault, not mine. They are responsible for what happened. With regard to blind emails, I communicated in blind emails for the reason that not everyone I emailed to has given me permission to share their email address so I could not make those addresses public … The emails went everywhere and that’s the nature of email. People understand this and still I received messages from only four people asking to be taken off the email list during this entire process.

…Let’s be clear about the communication protocol. It is a directive by the school — not a contract between the school and parents that requires parents to suspend their first amendment freedoms. In fact, parents are absolutely entitled to communicate concerns with other parents, other teachers, relatives, prospective parents, God, their dog, in whatever way they choose — whether in person, by phone, by email or by telepathy. Highland Hall has no right to (or expectation that they can) suspend basic human communication. I never agreed to this protocol, nor do I agree to the tenets contained within it. While perhaps not originally intended as such, it is being used to isolate parents so that parents who have a complaint are frustrated or otherwise coerced into silence. Many parents could have the same complaint about a teacher but if they are to follow this protocol each thinks they are the only ones complaining. This is wrong, unhealthy and immoral. The communication protocol is a way for Highland Hall to control information and is another obvious and shameful action on the part of the school.

…You further declare “Your recent blind copy email, inviting people to a website where you have made a number of negative comments about Highland Hall and specific individuals in the community, is an example of your behavior.”

Yes, it is an example of my behavior that I am proud of. My efforts to open a place for free dialog among the Highland Hall community are much more honest and noble than what anyone at Highland Hall has done. Highland Hall has had a web site for years and despite repeated requests has never offered a forum for open communications among parents.

…Regarding “negative” comments, my comments aren’t negative, the atmosphere at Highland Hall is negative and my comments describe and reflect this. No specific individuals were mentioned in my posts but as with any close community, most of us in the community have a good idea of who the players are. When I related my response to a private email, I was careful to remove references to individuals. It is curious that not a single parent has posted a positive comment about Highland Hall. For that matter, no teacher, board member, college member or administrator has made the slightest effort to challenge anything that I have said. That’s because I always speak the truth.

…You state “You have also refused to meet with the group designated by the College to speak with your about your concerns and activities.” I had to make a phone call to Highland Hall to find out what meeting this refers to. I am told it refers to one that was scheduled several months ago that I declined to attend after two other parents attended a similar meeting and were ambushed and humiliated by the “group”. You expect me to welcome this sort of exchange? Your own actions have made this impossible.

You close with “Our decision only applies to [my daughter] and next year’s sixth grade class. It does not apply to your other children at Highland Hall as long as you follow the guidelines of our communications protocol.”

Why, I wonder does this only apply to [my daughter]? Why don’t my public criticisms about Highland Hall affect the status of my other children? Could it be that [my daughter] has already decided not to return to Highland Hall next year?

…I had a lot of concern when I realized I would have to tell [my daughter] about your cruel and unnecessarily hurtful letter. I let her read it herself. When she was finished — she cheered and asked me if she could call her friends and tell them the good news! She is excited about leaving Highland Hall and the mind control and humiliation that comes with it.

…I understand why you don’t like me rocking the boat. Clearly, this is not the boat I would have chosen if I knew at the beginning of this journey where this boat was headed.

When David Gilmour, leader of the rock band Pink Floyd, turned to the education page of The Daily Telegraph last Wednesday, he was dismayed to read that the Steiner Waldorf School Fellowship is hoping to secure state support.

“When I think of the horrific experience I had, struggling with my children’s school, I felt I had to say something,” he declared.

His four children from his first marriage attended Michael Hall in East Sussex, one of 26 Steiner schools in Britain. “I wanted them to have a less pressurised education than I had,” he says. But he became disillusioned by the Steiner approach; two years ago, he sent his children to conventional schools.

Gilmour is not an outspoken man. But his children’s education, he feels, went so badly wrong that he wanted to make his views public.

…Gilmour was brought up in Cambridge, where his father was a senior lecturer in zoology. He was sent to the Perse — “It was a very disciplined school which I didn’t enjoy”….

He wanted his own children to have a more enjoyable experience, so when he and his wife separated, he fell in with her wishes and sent his children to Michael Hall. “But it soon became apparent that my children were neither happy nor learning.”

“

Several aspects of the Steiner system alarmed him. “Steiner believes that six to seven is the age at which to start teaching reading and writing. My son, Matthew, was frustrated by not being able to write his name at seven. When he left, aged nine, he could only just read.”

Another central plank of the philosophy is that, between the ages of eight and 14, children should remain with the same teacher for the main lesson every morning. This is designed to promote continuity and works well if child and teacher get on. If not, Gilmour says, “it can be torture”.

“The school had its good aspects, but overall, the system seemed slack. I found the children’s knowledge was very patchy, and their school reports, which consisted only of praise, gave me little idea of how they were really doing.”

…So concerned did he become that he took his children to be assessed by educational psychologists. The results shocked him. Matthew, when first examined in 1994, was judged to have an average IQ of 101 but was considered to be “seriously disabled in terms of literacy acquisition, with his reading and spelling lying a full three years below his chronological age”.

Less than two years later, Matthew was retested. The educational psychologist found him to have “flourished” outside the Steiner system; his retested IQ was now 124.

…His three daughters, too, had fallen behind. Sarah, the youngest, was 14 when she was transferred to a conventional school. Her IQ is high, but she had to be put in a class of girls a year younger than she was, and still struggled. She has now caught up with her classmates….

Clare, 18, who has dyslexia, now attends a specialist college, while Alice, 21, left Michael Hall with one A-level in art. Unqualified for a British university, she is about to start college in America.

With a very self-motivated child or one who needs intensive nurturing, Steiner can do a good job,” says Peter Gilchrist, one of the psychologists Gilmour consulted … [But] the rigidity of Rudolph Steiner’s 75-year-old philosophy can be problematic. “The system believes that children should take steps only when they are ready. Steiner teachers tend to assume any problems will all come right in the end and can be reluctant to acknowledge modern solutions. I once recommended that a child who had problems with motor skills should use a keyboard, but I was told that the writing had to come from within.”

Most children, he feels, thrive in a system that exerts more pressure on them.

…Gilmour’s children from his second marriage will go to mainstream state schools. They won’t be as tough as the one that sent him into revolt — but they will teach the three Rs from the age of five.

Diana wrote: “One would like to think that at least reading the Akashic Record, it would be a matter of being smoothly handed revealed, infallible truths, as contrasted with all the bickering and feuding on Wikipedia. [1] But if you follow any anthroposophical mailing lists for a time, you’ll see that the fighting is just as bloody and bitter, so between the two, I think it’s a very close call. [2] Considering that they supposedly have an infallible, comprehensive source for their knowledge, anthroposophists are surprisingly conflicted and contentious about it all. [3] Steve Hale is here telling us how wonderful it is, it’s all clear to him and it makes him happy in his life. [4] But among his fellow anthroposophists, at least online, he is a virtual pariah. In case anyone is unfamiliar with such goings-on, let me assure you that anthroposophists are far nastier to each other than their critics are to them. If they judge a fellow anthro to have read the Akashic Record ‘wrong,’ they will practically draw and quarter him. These infallible truths aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.” [5]

And to make matters worse, Anthroposophists use this stuff while working with innocent children in their schools. It’s one thing for adult anthroposophists to argue about akashic records with each other but another thing when they work this into the lives of children and their families.

Example: One of my children was treated as a melancholic for a few years by his first Waldorf teacher. After that teacher’s nervous breakdown the next anthroposophist teacher told us all about our child’s temperament, which, of course, was “choleric.” [6]

“But we thought our child was a melancholic?”

Awkward silence and teacher changes subject . . .

Suggestion to teachers: How about treating our children as a individual human beings with individual needs. Play with your Ouija board at home and keep your personal religious/spiritual beliefs away from our children. [7]

Explanatory notes added by Roger Rawlings

[1] Diana Winters, a former Waldorf parent, has been a frequent participant in the discussions held at the Waldorf Critics list. In this case, she was responding to messages about the Akashic Record — a mythic celestial storehouse of knowledge. [See “Akasha“.] Rudolf Steiner claimed that he could read the Record, thanks to his clairvoyance. Many of Steiner’s teachings derive from this “clairvoyant research.” The reference to Wikipedia stems from a joking comparison made in a previous message between the Akashic Record and Wikipedia — both being unreliable. Diana points out that in reading the Record, one presumably gains infallible truths with a minimum of difficulty or turmoil, while at Wikipedia — where everyone can “edit” everything — pitched battles erupt. Critics and defenders of Rudolf Steiner have wrestled exhaustingly over the contents of Wikipedia pages that mention Steiner.

[2] Diana says that even more intense squabbles tend to break out on Anthroposophical lists, where people who presumably should be allies — because they are all followers of Rudolf Steiner — fight one another bitterly because they have differing interpretations of Anthroposophical teachings, and each participant tends to think that s/he is unquestionably correct while all the others are obviously wrong. These are battles, in other words, between true believers.

[3] Diana says that such internal Anthroposophical battles should not occur, if indeed the Akashic Record provides “an infallible, comprehensive source for [Anthroposophists’] knowledge.” If it did, Anthroposophists should all be of one mind and peace should prevail.

[4] Steve Hale is one of the champions of Anthroposophy who show up occasionally “here” — i.e., at the Waldorf Critics list. Hale contends that Anthroposophy has brought him clarity and happiness, and he tends to present his take on Anthroposophy as the one true take. But other Anthroposophists have different takes.

[5] Diana’s message ends at this point, and a former Waldorf father, “Walden,” offers his own thoughts.

[6] Waldorf teachers tend to pigeonhole students into a set of unfounded categories — the classical temperaments: melancholic, choleric, sanguine, and phlegmatic. [See “Temperaments” and “Humouresque“.] But because Anthroposophical “knowledge” is so imprecise, indeed illusory, different Waldorf teachers put the same children in different pigeonholes.

[7] The problem, as Walden knows, is that true-believing Waldorf teachers often live for the very purpose of bringing their kooky ideas into the classroom (albeit they may do this covertly). In bringing Anthroposophy into the school, they follow the lead of Rudolf Steiner, who said this:

“We certainly may not go to the other extreme, where people say that anthroposophy may not be brought into the school. Anthroposophy will be in the school….” — Rudolf Steiner, FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER (Anthroposophic Press, 1998), p. 495. 

Thus, following their different takes on Anthroposophy, Waldorf teachers stereotype their students rather than treating them as individuals, and — to make matters worse — the teachers disagree over which stereotype fits which child. So confusion reigns.

Source: https://sites.google.com/site/waldorfwatch/pops

Two Steiner state schools in the west of England face possible closure or takeover after the Department for Education said it intended to cut off their funding later this year.

The trusts running the free schools in Bristol and Frome have been issued termination warning notices by the DfE after the schools were rated as inadequate and placed in special measures by Ofsted.

The inspections published in January reported a long list of serious safeguarding and teaching problems at the two schools, which subscribe to aspects of the unconventional educational philosophy created by Rudolf Steiner in the early 20th century.

“I am now issuing this termination warning notice because I do not have confidence that the trust is able to rapidly and sustainably improve the academy’s systems of governance and management and educational standards,” Lisa Mannall, the DfE’s regional schools commissioner for the south-west of England, said in the letters.

“I am therefore minded to terminate the funding agreement of the academy and transfer the school to a strong multi-academy trust that can provide the capacity for continued improvement.”

The letters are the latest step in a formal legal process that could result in the Steiner Academy Bristol and the Steiner Academy Frome being closed unless new sponsors can be found to step in and take them over.

Mannall’s letters told the schools that their safeguarding was not effective, with pupils “exposed to avoidable risk of harm”, including unnecessary physical intervention by staff. The Bristol school was told that bullying was “too frequent” and leaders had been too slow to take action.

“Governors have not held senior leaders to account effectively over time. As a result, teaching is weak and pupils are underachieving significantly across the school,” Mannell added.

Joss Hayes, the headteacher of the Steiner Academy Bristol, said: “External partners have already confirmed that safeguarding is effective at the school. We are committed to making improvements and have started implementing a number of new learning programmes.”

Three of the four Steiner state schools that have opened since 2011 have been rated as inadequate, including Bristol, Frome and a third school in Exeter. The Exeter Steiner Academy was sent a termination warning notice by the DfE last month.

The fourth school, in Hereford, was rated good by Ofsted and posted an encouraging performance in last summer’s GCSE exams.

The trusts in Bristol and Frome have until 20 February to persuade the DfE they have made significant improvements.

Roy Douglas, a governor at the Bristol school, said: “Our parents remains unfailingly supportive of our school and its ethos. We intend to challenge the Ofsted judgement in the courts.”

The governors have begun crowdfunding to pay for legal action, and said they had raised £17,000.

After the Ofsted inspections were published, the education secretary, Damian Hinds, said: “Safeguarding our children and young people throughout their education is paramount, regardless of the setting in which they are being taught.”

Campaigners including Humanists UK have called for the schools to be closed, alleging that the Steiner ethos promotes pseudoscience and homeopathy, including cases of hostility towards vaccinations.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/feb/13/two-state-steiner-schools-face-possible-closure-or-takeover