Love and Critics

I have spent some brief time on the Waldorf critics list (if that's what it's called) recently, and I have engaged in a couple of exchanges that I intend to continue when I have time. It is stimulating and challenging to enter a discussion that involves different points of view.

It seems to me that some of the Waldorf critics, at least, actually love Waldorf education and anthroposophy, that the tension between the highly imperfect practices of Waldorf schools and Waldorf teachers and the high ideals that they espouse drives a desire for criticism. As a noted anthroposophist told me once, "I love Waldorf education; it's just the schools I can't stand." Tongue-in-cheek, but, all too often, understandable.

What I mean, for example, is this: I have no interest in astrology. When people at a dinner party start talking about it, I tune out. When I come across references to it in my reading, anthroposophical or otherwise, I tend to start skimming. Astrology may be total bunk or it may contain great truths of which I will remain ignorant. But I just can't bring myself to be bothered. I recognize that others take it seriously, on the one side for its apparent value, and on the other for its apparent idiocy. But to have a stake in a discussion about it is beyond me. And I recognize that I could only have strong feelings about it if it connected to my life somehow. I do not embrace it and I am not critical of it; I am indifferent.

If I grow, eventually, through interest, to love it, fine. If I grow to hate it, however, I must recognize that beyond the hatred is love for something that I wish to see born. In the phenomenon from which I distance myself is a kernel of truth that draws me. (Similarly, as the rabbi said to the atheist, "The god you do not believe in, I also do not believe in.")

To turn this around, if I experienced astrology as connected to my life, I would have strong feelings about it. So, in manifesting strong feelings, great interest--many of the Waldorf critics are as well read in Steiner as any anthroposophists I know--Waldorf critics demonstrate the connection of Waldorf education with their lives.

Unfortunately (from my point of view), whereas my education in a Waldorf school (after nine years in three mediocre public schools) and my experience as a teacher lead me to see great value in it, the experiences of many critics is the reverse. They or their children were wronged by someone or something in Waldorf schools--dogmatic teachers, heedless governance, even educational malpractice. Rather than writing off this experience, however, as we all do with wrongs done to us every day (unless we aim to carry a lot of baggage wherever we go; fewer than one child in one thousand is educated in a Waldorf school in the U.S.; if our primary motive is improving education, there are better ways to spend our time...), some Waldorf critics have engaged with it, in part through their on-line list or group.

Their motives, even if they seek to destroy Waldorf education, are beyond reproach. They aim (as I do) to make the world a better place, and what, in the end, is more loving than that?

Similarly, we may disagree, even after long conversation, but if we shun each other we exclude the possibility of mutual understanding. And there's no love in that.