Playing “Steiner Says” Again: Nine More Myths about Waldorf Education

(Click here to read the first installment of “Playing ‘Steiner Says.’”)

I started writing this essay following a re-reading this summer of Rudolf Steiner’s Education for Adolescence during which I was reminded of a pet peeve: Waldorf teachers, at least in the U.S., talk about a three-day rhythm to “main lesson” classes. Steiner is clear, however, that the rhythm of a lesson occurs over two days and in no real way can be construed to be divided into three parts (thinking, feeling, will). I was then pleased to discover that Christof Wiechert, leader of the Pedagogical Section of the Anthroposophical Society, and a Waldorf school graduate, has written about this as well. He does not address what Steiner does say about such a lesson, but he identifies the myth of the three-part lesson. He also raises several other myths in two related articles. These myths have been on my list for a while, so it’s time to write them up.

The point is not to castigate those who have adopted these practices, but to point out that these practices have little or no basis in Steiner’s work, cannot be said to be essential to our practices, and may well be replaced with other, more healthful, more educational, more effective practices. And all this speaks again to the importance of 1.) continued immersion in Steiner’s work as the foundation for our thinking about Waldorf education and 2.) continued research in teaching (remember, that’s the point of our weekly faculty meetings). Four or five generations in, word-of-mouth, oversimplification, static, and all manner of other distractions are bound to enter the domain of our work, and it’s up to us to review and renew it.

1. “Three-part” Lessons.

How do you teach in a Waldorf School?

You teach a lesson over three days, addressing thinking, feeling, and will, right? Or you make sure to address thinking, feeling, and will—the order varies depending on the lesson and on whom you read—in every lesson, a “threefold” [abuse of the word; three parts does not make threefold] lesson?

WRONG. So wrong. There is no reference in Steiner’s work to anything like this. I’d like to be corrected, but I doubt that such a reference exists.

Don’t just take it from me. Wiechert writes, “There are no grounds to be found for dividing the main lesson into three parts in Steiner’s work, neither in the lectures nor in the books of the teachers’ meetings.” (Italics in original.) Later, “…this three-fold structure does not belong to the essential characteristics of Waldorf education. On the contrary, it can be a hindrance to the development of a teacher-pupil relationship which breathes between teaching and learning.”

A slightly longer version of Wiechert's article may be found here.

So what does Steiner suggest? Well, one primary source is in the third lecture of the mistitled Education for Adolescence, formerly The Supplementary Course, given in the spring of 1921 for ALL teachers at the original Waldorf School. Here Steiner discusses a two day rhythm, and one that addresses students first in “their whole being,” and then in imagination, then in sleep, and then in judgment, discernment, or conclusion-forming. To be clear, the imaginative and the judgment-oriented portions of the lesson, separated by sleep, both address the realm that we may call “feeling.” Feeling isn’t just one capacity among three; it is the gateway between which thinking and will must pass on the journey from one to the other, in either direction.

(Which leads me to the following digression: All those “threefold” logos that Waldorf schools adopt aren’t actually threefold. A lemniscate [think of an 8 on its side], the symbol of infinity, is threefold in that the two “lobes” on either side are connected by a crossing, the third, connecting part. Any form with three lobes is minimally four-fold.)

In this passage, Steiner doesn’t address class work or homework. (Dogmatists will say that Steiner was “against” homework, but this clearly isn’t true. Briefly, we can say he was in favor of meaningful work.)

Steiner’s description of a lesson is more beautiful, more real, more practical, and less fragmented, less schematic, less pedantic, than some easier-to-remember but false idea of a lesson.

For Wiechert, “The real rhythm, which we must always heed, is not between parts of the main lesson, but rather the rhythm which reveals itself with the children or pupils. When do they get tired, when do they waken up? That is the essential consideration. Whoever teaches according to this principle, will dissolve half the discipline problems just through doing this.” Recall that for Steiner, spirit, consciousness, expresses itself in states of waking, dreaming, and sleeping.

Waldorf teachers, if you have bought the three-part lesson, I urge you to reconsider. September is right around the corner. No time like the present.

2. Recorder (flute) Playing.

Here is Wiechert: “Thus, I dare to question whether playing the recorder in the first part of the morning is the right activity. Just watch a group of children that plays the recorder in the early morning and a group of children who do this in the music lesson later in the morning. A great difference is to be noticed; (a difference which, strangely enough, is not to be noticed with singing).”

3. Clapping, Stomping Math Games.

Wiechert, again: “How about the much praised stamping, what does that achieve? You can see that it makes the children tired instead of awake. Stamping makes them tired, not awake.” Later, “The idea is very widespread that you stamp around vigorously with a group of children in order to get them awake. In fact, it has the opposite effect. You can observe it with the practicing of the times table when it is linked to movements. Then you will see the pupils carrying out the procedure ‘as in a dream.’ Spoken in chorus a kind of ‘trance’ ensues: it is carried out as in sleep. Teachers will do well to lose no time in breaking this link between movement in sleep and knowledge gained through wakefulness.”

If we conduct our research as we should, we will discover, I have little doubt, that rhythmical repetition of math times-tables is actually a poor way to teach them, whether with clapping, with stomping, or with beanbag tossing. Students are resilient and usually learn what we have to teach them despite our poor methods. But there are plenty of children who simply don’t easily make the conceptual leap from the chanting and stamping to the beauty, patterns, and concepts of math. I wrote this when I wrote about freeing the math gnomes, and I’ll write it again: Read Steiner on math teaching. Read von Baravalle on math teaching. There’s nothing trance-inducing there.

4. Too Many Stories.

Wiechert’s on a roll. Here is a myth that had not occurred to me, but, reading him, I concur. “How many tales and stories can people ‘stand’ in a day, in a week? The handwork teacher reads something as the children are so hard-working, on the same day there is a religion lesson and the stand-in teacher has brought a story from his ‘emergency reserves ’ with him. Have the teachers in the college meeting concerned themselves with the issue of how many stories a certain class hears in the course of a day?”

(Note: German schools may have a religion lesson as part of the school week. Not just for the children of anthroposophists, for whom Steiner created the “independent religion lesson,” but for all denominations. U.S. schools generally do not, unless they are religious academies. Waldorf schools in the U.S. do not have such lessons.)

School ended at lunchtime in Steiner’s day, and “main lesson” was followed by classes in which teachers were not necessarily expected to tell stories or use verses.

Can we address Wiechert’s questions? Or are we too set in our ways?

5. Annual Class Play.

Drama is important in the lives of children. Doing a play every year is not, nor can any reference to such a practice be found in Steiner’s work. In another article, Wiechert writes in some detail of the history of plays, and Steiner’s words on drama in schools.

6. Block Crayons.

These are not suited to anyone’s hand for writing, and are designed for and convenient for creating washes of color. Here’s Wiechert: “In Waldorf schools worldwide there is an established custom that colored wax crayon blocks, then later on colored wax crayons are used for the first lessons in writing.

The question of the ergonomics of the wax crayon blocks was settled a long time ago: they were never thought of as instruments of writing, but for laying on expanses of color. Of course, you can make straight lines and bent lines with blocks too. However, a glance at the children’s hands shows that they hold the blocks in an unnatural and cramped way. It makes sense to get their little hands used to the wax crayons that nestle better in their hands from the very outset. (Yet the question needs to be raised - and allowed – as to how it would be if people in far off countries would look around to see what the local markets offer by way of writing equipment and other implements before falling back on these particular items. This gesture of looking to see what is available in the topical culture of the country concerned, that can be connected with, is a gesture to be positively affirmed in principle).”

7. Borders in Main Lesson Books.

Wiechert says it all: “One result of the use of the wax crayon blocks is that before use a page is framed first in colored borders. When this occurs for a definite and appropriate purpose and it is carried out carefully, there can be no objection: it will draw attention to what is being presented. However, when it happens automatically, as you will find in nearly all schools in the world (!), and when you hear, upon enquiring, it belongs to Waldorf schools, or else it is the way it was taught in the Seminar, or else has been discovered in other main lesson books, which have been shown as exemplary, then a habit has been established once again which shoots wide of its target. For as a rule these borders are anything but beautiful. A fine, purposeful knack, the striving to shape the main lesson book aesthetically gives birth to the opposite.”

8. Main Lesson Books.

Some classes, courses, and students benefit from them, if they are produced by good teachers teaching well, but the idea that they belong to Waldorf schools or Waldorf education—or, that, if a teacher does not choose to have the students make such books, he or she is not a Waldorf teacher—is wrong.

Wiechert: “Nonetheless, this use of the main lesson book must be in keeping with the dynamics of the child’s development. For younger children the main lesson book can almost represent a threat on account of its defining character: every mistake is written permanently, is there for good, can no longer be put right. The white sheet can instill fear. In the first few years of school there should be main lesson books with removable pages or else a system consisting of loose leaves.

"If we look at the middle school classes, we see the main lesson book in an intense battle of competition with knowledge available on the internet. In these new circumstances, the keeping of the main lesson book as an aesthetic-artistic task can be reduced to the ‘sticking in’ of facts that more or less belong to the lesson, which have been ‘Googled’ or downloaded from Wikipedia. The balancing between what is heard and seen becomes skewed. However, this balancing of what is heard and seen is the instrument of the flexible-musical study of man.

"The core of Steiner’s pedagogy was not meant as an object of study, but as an application for every day teaching. The work in the main lesson books in a meaningful balance is such an application in the day to day work.”

9. Building Projects in 3^rd Grade.

Many schools in Germany and the U.S. more or less insist that 3^rd graders build something, consonant with their study of housing. It’s just not necessary nor does it accord with Steiner’s words.

Wiechert: “[Steiner] makes it clear not everyone has to build on the school grounds! … Whoever’s school is on the coast can concern themselves with fishing, whoever is in the mountains with his school, where possible with quarrying, whoever has his school near a car factory, where possible with metalwork or forging. The freedom to shape it is huge, in the Richter Curriculum it is pointed out with great clarity by Tobias Richter.

“Why this great detail? There are two motives behind it; firstly, because there is the danger that a class three that does not leave behind something they have built on the school grounds will easily be considered as not conforming to the curriculum. Yet, such an insinuation has no basis whatsoever.

Secondly, you cannot help wondering whether it is right that year after year pupils pass by something on the school grounds that only in the rarest cases (with a bench or a functioning oven) has some practical purpose. Steiner attached great value to the practical aspect particularly with all crafts; it should be something that makes sense. Even a tree house, beautifully made with the industrious participation of the parents with the pupils, is something dead for the following school year.”

***

I’m sure this article, as my previous “Playing ‘Steiner Says,’” will arouse objections from some and dismay in others. I welcome debate about these important matters. But can we admit we were wrong, working from faulty understanding? Can we serve the children we teach by examining our habits and practices and changing them when they are deficient? If we don’t, if we can’t, can we really say we’re practicing “Waldorf education”?

Waldorf Education is Deeply Strange

Because Waldorf education is deeply strange, we need not make it superficially strange.

Strangeness can be good because it can shock us into awareness. Without strangeness, perhaps, we drowsily stay our courses, despite the imbalances, flaws, or contradictions they may hold. Deep strangeness shocks us deeply, provoking, perhaps, deep thought and real change. Superficial strangeness shocks us superficially, and we recoil, irritated and none the wiser for it.

For Waldorf education, deep strangeness arises from Rudolf Steiner’s request that we consider the questions of what it means to be a growing, developing human being and how those of us who choose to teach or who are called to teach can assist in the humanizing task we undertake. We are asked to take seriously ideas about angels, about existence beyond the bounds of this life, about human destiny, about human capacities that unfold across a lifetime, and about human consciousness. In a world that denies the value of questions of meaning beyond the personal, trivializes the humanities, and raises a caricature of science to the status of a new religion, these are deeply strange considerations.

For Waldorf education, superficial strangeness arises in prohibitions on black crayons, abuse of gnomes to teach profound world processes in mathematics, wool socks and Birkenstocks, pseudo-neo-German expressionist typefaces, meandering, watery paintings, book jackets, and name tags. The list goes on and on. One version of this list is now known as Steve’s pet peeves.

The superficial strangeness that we cast over the deep strangeness of our work is not just amusing, however, nor is it inconsequential. It replaces a deep, silent regard for the mysteries of existence, for example, with sectarian chatter about half-understood Christianity and an imported, alienating crypto-Protestant culture. Things like this create a shell around us. Because we are not clams, this is not useful to us or good for us. We may feel warm and safe inside, but then we shouldn’t wonder that we’re alone.

Hindus do not rub your face in reincarnation. Nuns do not need to fake reverence by moving and speaking really slowly. You can’t tell a true shaman by his dress. Those who have truly seen the light carry it quietly within.

If we live only what we know to be true, authentically, no matter how little this may seem, and trust that we can live in not-yet-knowing about many, many things, we can avoid joining a movement of superficial strangeness and begin to contend with the real strangeness, the real mysteries at the root of Waldorf education. These are mysteries that may bring health to our students, health to the world, and even health to us.

(These remarks were part of an address to the Class of 2012 of the Certificate Program in Waldorf Elementary Teacher Education at Sunbridge Institute, July 28, 2012.)

How Many Waldorf Teachers Actually Take an Elementary School Class for Eight Years?

About six years ago, one of my MSEd students, Ashwini Pawar, wrote her thesis on this question.

You cannot find Rudolf Steiner saying that teachers should take a class for so many years—“several,” yes. Precisely eight? No. And Mark Riccio has suggested that even Steiner’s conception of elementary school was really only seven years (the eighth year a requirement of Swiss school law).

So Pawar examined ten years of class teaching at six different Waldorf schools and discovered that only 1 in 4 teachers actually takes a class in a Waldorf school from first through eighth grade.

She also asked about what led to teachers leaving a class—burn-out, family changes (moving, childbirth), termination? This is much harder to assess. Teachers don’t necessarily leave for one reason alone. Teachers don’t necessarily confess to burn-out, or, especially, to being fired. Schools and administrators, too, on the advice of their lawyers, won’t necessarily discuss employee termination. And, even if they would, teachers are often allowed or asked to resign before actually being fired. Regardless, as far as Pawar could tell (in my recollection—I’m sorry to say I didn’t keep a copy of her thesis), reasons for leaving a class teaching job were roughly half positive—having a child, for instance—and half negative—burning out or being fired.

In this, Waldorf school teachers mirror all teachers. Approximately half of all teachers leave the profession within the first five years. (Research by Richard Ingersoll.) It’s not a job for everyone, Waldorf or not.

What does this mean? Waldorf schools might do well to avoid presenting this ideal as a reality. If parents are “sold” on the ideal, and, in the process, unhealthily attached to a particular teacher, it can be a real blow to their affection for the school if a teacher leaves midstream. This assumes that schools continue to hold it as an ideal—at least a few Waldorf schools now deliberately divide elementary faculties between lower elementary and middle school.

A Glance at Discipline Methods in Waldorf Schools

Disclaimer—This is a blog post. It is off-the-cuff, not scholarly, from memory, etc., etc. Hope it provokes discussion. Not intended to be more than the beginning of a conversation.


A commenter on a previous post, “Steve P,” asked about the line “pedagogical methods used in dealing with discipline” in a document called “Description of the Main Characteristics of Waldorf Education.” He kindly posted a link to the English version, which I’ve copied here. My response  here is too long to post as a comment on a comment, and the conversation is worth bringing out in the open, so I thought I’d make it a new post.


In my experience, there are few consistently used methods for discipline issues—including bullying and teasing—in Waldorf elementary schools. (Kim John Payne has done a lot of work with Waldorf schools in this area, but I don’t know how many schools use his methods, much about them, how much of it seeps in after he’s gone, etc. Comments, anyone?)


Some teachers are kind and gentle, others are “old school” and harsh. I have known teachers who have used methods indistinguishable from those my teachers used in public school in the 1960s and 1970s—shaming, sending a student out of the room, changing a student’s seat, giving a demerit or “white” or “pink” slip (varies by school), yelling or shouting, meeting with students who are involved in a fracas, having students write repeatedly that they will not (or will) do something, requiring written or face-to-face apologies, calling or threatening to call parents, and, in cases that resulted in teachers being fired, hitting a student or tying a student to a chair.


The one “method” of which I know that may be different from that used in other schools is what teachers often call “pedagogical stories.” Say two students have a conflict because one student calls another names and the second student responds by hitting. Of course, the teacher should stop this behavior immediately, demand apologies, explain that the students know that this is not right, call parents if necessary, and so on. But teachers in Waldorf schools will then often make up (or find) a story in which two characters behave in a way analogous to the way the children (mis) behaved, including, perhaps, egregious or dire or ridiculous consequences in the story for those who do not reform their behavior. I’m not saying this is what Steiner intended (I’m pretty sure it’s not quite right), but I know it goes on. My son was on to it early, and would tell us at the dinner table in 2^nd grade, “Well, everyone knows that the frog is Daniel, who hit Christopher yesterday, who’s the other frog, because they were fighting over a toy truck, which is the lily pad in the story.” Perhaps his teacher was particularly obvious. Perhaps such stories have an effect even when they’re transparent. Anyway, that’s how it goes.


I’ve also heard of—but not witnessed—teachers’ non-intervention because they believe in “letting the children work it out (perhaps karmically).” If there is karma, it works forward and backward, applies at all times to all circumstances, and inaction is as karmically loaded as action would be.


Which reminds me of some of Steiner’s remarks on seating children according to temperament (would it help, skeptics, if we said personality? The “big five” personality traits—openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion—that many developmentalists discuss mirror some aspects of temperament, and then add “neurotic,” which I think of as a personality disorder, rather than a personality in its own right). One idea was that children seated with “like” children would temper their own personalities (temperaments) in reaction to those around them. Frankly, isn’t that how many of us change our behavior and personality over time? If we do at all? Anyway, I suppose this could be called a disciplinary method in some way.


Continuing with class discipline, it’s important to focus on the positive, too. The best teachers I’ve known—the ones I aim to emulate in my own teaching—rarely, if ever, have discipline problems in their classrooms.


Harry Kretz comes to mind, a gentleman so dignified, so respectful of his students, so careful of his time in the classroom, and with such a dry wit, that he could teach for years without a hint of a discipline problem. Not everyone can or should be Harry—each of us has his or her own qualities as a person and as a teacher—but he was fully himself and could therefore allow students to be fully themselves, without the need to “act out.”


As my friend George McWilliam points out, student misbehavior is often due to unease or anxiety and should fundamentally be addressed by a change in the teacher, not imposed on the student by the teacher. Any teacher facing misbehavior may ask, why does this student believe that this is an acceptable way to behave? It’s rare that students misbehave simply for the sake of being “bad.” Students may be bored, anxious, unsettled, overtaxed, insecure, confused, and on and on. It’s the teachers job to address these issues without making them the problems of the student.


Separate from individuality and from addressing nagging unresolved issues in a class, the most positive steps I believe I can take toward classroom discipline are in creating anticipation and expectation at the end of a class so that students enter the next day focused on learning what I’ve hinted at the day before. And, in class, working to generate and maintain interest and to engage students in learning so that they are so focused on what we’re doing (and not on what they could do that would disrupt or distract) that it simply doesn’t occur to them to misbehave. Ideally, if someone does begin to misbehave, the students are allies in helping him or her quickly restore order to get on with what we’re about.


This last point can be taken to a sentimental or spectacular extreme—one of the reasons I so detest the movie “Dead Poets Society”—and must be deep and authentic to be sustained and healthful. Lots of room for error, lots of time for practice. Never a dull moment.


To end, I continue to resist the archaic word “pedagogical.” In U.S. English (and maybe in British English, as well), the word should be “educational.” A pedagogue is not just a teacher—as he or she may have been a couple of centuries ago—but, in caricature, an old, dried-out, unchanging, unfeeling, know-it-all. Yuck.

Crisis in the History of Education in the United States

From one point of view, the growth and development of education in the United States has been formed by perceptions of crisis. This “change-because-something-is-wrong” mentality may exist elsewhere, as well, but others will have to decide whether or not this is so.

Here is a brief and incomplete look at this history.

It begins with compulsory schooling in Massachusetts, instituted, in part, because of the perceived threat of Irish Catholics—their illiteracy, alternate Bible (not the Church of England’s King James) and its interpretation (salvation through works, not faith), alcohol abuse, and devotion to an authority (the Pope) other than the republic in which they stood.

It continues through the restrictions of professionalism and unionizing, including the founding of the NEA in 1857. Michael Katz calls this the rise of “incipient bureaucracy,” which serves administrators, budgeters, and record-keepers more than it does students in schools. Nothing wrong with professionals or unions; changes in this direction were clearly necessary in the late 19^th century, but they quickly come to serve themselves and not the children in their care.

In the 1870s, “manual training” attempts to mold a (lower) class of students into a work force. Reconstruction sees the rise of public education in the south to address, in part, the new threat of the children of formerly enslaved persons.

The Blaine amendments in many states prevent taxpayers’ money from supporting parochial schools in any way. Those who take the separation of church and state in education for an entirely good and entirely given interpretation of the first amendment would do well to look at the anti-Catholic sentiment behind these laws (which were passed in reactionary states because they could not pass the U.S. Congress).

Kindergartens are wonderful places for children—maybe, mostly—but their rise in the 1880s is, in part, due to further waves of immigrants in need of assimilation to a mostly white, Anglo-American culture.

In the 1890s, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) promotes vocational education to continue to deal with immigrant labor in factories and because of the unintended consequences of the industrial revolution in producing unskilled laborers.

Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896, institutionalizes “separate but equal” racism for the next sixty years, including in the construction, funding, and staffing of schools.

The progressive era derives from Jane Addams’ work at Hull House and her attempt to educate young female immigrants. Clearly, turning immigrants into Americans may be said to be a primary driving force in the creation of systematic public education in this country.

Terman, Hall, and the Stanford-Binet IQ tests seek to sort first soldiers for World War I, and, shortly thereafter, students, based on innate and quantifiable “intelligence.” Brave new world, here we go. Despite a century of subtle manipulation, SAT tests are still no more than IQ tests.

The Scopes trial of 1925 brings the creationists’ challenge to science, marking a struggle that continues today in which religious extremists attempt to influence curricula and textbook publishers.

In the 1930s, it seemed to many in the U.S. that capitalism was in decline and that, without socialism or a strong, perhaps fascist, leader in the mold of Hitler or Mussolini, we would fail politically and economically. George Counts’ “Dare the School Build a New Social Order?” is a work wrought by a late, chastened “progressive” thinker who cannot foresee the dehumanizing excesses of fascism and totalitarianism.

Rudolf Flesch, an Austrian, introduces phonetics and fear with “Why Johnny Can’t Read” in the 1950s.

Brown v. Topeka, KS, Board of Ed. overturns Plessy v. Ferguson, marks the rise of civil rights, but leads, eventually, to busing and other questionable (if honorable) attempts to level an uneven playing field and their unintended consequences (“white flight,” etc.).

The Space Race, a creation, again, of fear of the perceived successes of totalitarian socialism, leads to post-Sputnik educational reform and the National Defense Education Act (NDEA), which quickly gives us so-called “New Math.”

Since 1983’s “A Nation at Risk,” followed by “America 2000,” “Goals 2000,” and “No Child Left Behind,” we have participated in the questionable rise of standardized testing and all the ballyhoo and anti-education that accompanies it.

Assuming there’s some truth to my interpretation, we should ask ourselves some questions about this century and a half of haphazard history.

Are our children well served by an educational system born out of and continually reformed by perceptions of failure and crisis?

Who is served by the fear and foment of this mode? Is it our children and those who know them best—teachers, parents, psychologists—or is it, more likely, politicians, textbook publishers, educational technologists, and interest groups led by extremists?

Waldorf Critics—The FAQ You’ve Been Waiting For

So you’re interested in Waldorf education and you’re doing your due diligence, looking into it, trying to figure out if it’s right for your child. And you come across the Waldorf critics—the website of People for Legal and Non-sectarian Schools (PLANS)—or the Waldorf critics Yahoo group. And you read and read and wonder what to make of it all. Here are some FAQs, as I imagine them.

Q. Who are the Waldorf critics?

A. They’re individuals. Spend a bit of time on their sites, and you’ll see that some are calm and clear, others are rabid and manic, some are funny, some bitter, some wistful, some scornful. Many, but not all, are former students or parents at Waldorf schools. Methinks many protest too much, and could as easily be great friends of Waldorf education as critics. Some used to be, and may be again; others aren’t, but given their sincerity, may yet be. Some have had negative experiences at Waldorf schools. In my opinion, they too often generalize these experiences to cover “all” Waldorf schools or Waldorf education. Some actually have no experience of Waldorf schools whatsoever, and really are more critical of anthroposophy than of Waldorf education.

Q. They’re so critical! Is there any basis to their criticisms?

A. Their criticisms and arguments range from the astute and accurate to the twisted and just plain wrong. Anyone who has worked in or been associated with a Waldorf school for more than a few months will recognize some of the problems and tendencies that critics point out. Often, the difference is not that Waldorf critics see something that Waldorfers don’t, it’s that critics see problem X, let’s say, as pervasive, making Waldorf education rotten to the core, while Waldorfers see problem X as an aberration in an otherwise healthful educational paradigm.

Q. What are their actual criticisms?

A. The PLANS site is pretty clear about these; the Yahoo group and blogs, as ongoing forums, less so. I’ll restate them, as I understand them, in my own terms.

1.     Waldorf schools are the missionary arm of anthroposophy, an occult, cult-like religious sect founded by the misguided guru Rudolf Steiner. Waldorf schools lie about or obfuscate this connection in order to appear independent of it.

2.     Because of their beliefs, following Steiner, they espouse a racist ideology;

3.     They teach discredited “bad” science;

4.     They allow students to bully one another (it’s their destiny, or “karma”);

5.     They shun technology; and

6.     They subscribe to outdated or incorrect theories of child development.

Q. But this doesn’t sound like what I read in Steiner or what I see when I visit a Waldorf school; isn’t this based on experience of small samples and selectively taking quotations out of context?

A. Yes.

If Rudolf Steiner…

1.     believed strongly in and spoke and wrote about human freedom;

2.     believed in non-sectarian education;

3.     in overcoming distinctions of race and in the highest ethics;

4.     in re-humanizing a dehumanizing thrall to scientism and technological optimism;

5.     in teaching according to human development, even as this changes from time to time and place to place;

6.     in re-attaching human beings to what Huston Smith calls “the perennial philosophy;”

7.     and if anthroposophy is not a religion;

8.     and if Waldorf schools and Waldorf teachers are doing their best to implement an education according to these principles;

then the critics are not so much wrong—although I believe they’re frequently and fundamentally wrong about many things—as they are looking through the wrong end of the binoculars, or looking at a funhouse mirror. They perceive—and then represent—a diminished and distorted view of Waldorf education and anthroposophy.

Q. So their criticisms are groundless?

A. No, of course not. Each contains some truth, or it wouldn’t be worth typing about. Let me be clear.

1.     Some Waldorf teachers and anthroposophists turn anthroposophy into a sect and act in a cult-like manner. But they’re a minority and they’re wrong to do so.

2.     There is bad science teaching and bad history teaching in some Waldorf schools and by some Waldorf teachers. The critics are fond of referencing the work of those, like Roy Wilkinson, who are pretty extreme and whom I steer my education students away from. They seem to ignore the deep and thoughtful teachers and writers about anthroposophy and Waldorf education—Henri Bortoft, Owen Barfield, Craig Holdrege, Stephen Edelglass, Douglas Sloan, Fred Amrine, Arthur Zajonc, Gertrude Reif Hughes; the list goes on and on, and anyone sincerely interested can add to it easily.

3.     Sometimes, curricula in Waldorf schools are based too much on a literal reading of a translation of general remarks made in Europe in the early 20^th century. No doubt. But Waldorf schools have come a long way, especially in the United States, in updating curricula and methods.

4.     Sometimes Waldorf teachers make bad decisions and sometimes these are based on a misunderstanding of Steiner or of anthroposophy and sometimes these are supported by an insecure or ideological school culture, but, again, in my experience, these are rare and, for most students and parents most of the time, are greatly outweighed by the humanizing, creative, warm, supportive, good education in a Waldorf school.

5.     Some anthroposophists, including those in Waldorf schools, have used a selective reading of Steiner or other anthroposophists as the basis for a racist view of the world. I believe there are fewer of these each generation, and, in my experience, examples of anthroposophically-based or Waldorf-institutionalized racism are rare (see “Accusations of Racism,” which I stand by despite the objections of some critics. Were I to write this again, I would probably change the title to “allegations” instead of “accusations,” a more neutral word, but so be it).

6.     Waldorf schools could be more open to parents and visitors—although I believe they’re generally more open than critics give them credit for being, and each school is different, anyway.

7.     In the age of the Internet, I simply don’t believe schools could get away with “hiding” Steiner or anthroposophy from prospective parents, even if they wanted to. And, in my experience, they don’t.

Q. Say, didn’t you go to a Waldorf high school after 8 years of public school, and haven’t you spent much of your career teaching in Waldorf schools? Doesn’t that make you biased?

A. Yes. Or else I know what I’m talking about. Or both.

Q. I’ve read all this. What now?

A. If you’re looking for a school, visit, spend time there (as you would at any school, right?), and meet your child’s future teachers. Research shows that it’s better to have a good teacher in a bad school than a bad teacher in a good school. So much comes down to teaching. Talk to parents and students. Gather information and make the decision based on your own experience and your own thinking. Don’t let critics dissuade you, and don’t let Waldorfers convince you.

If you’re just surfing the Web, looking for truth, good luck to you.

Part of a Waldorf Teacher Education Reading List

Yes, we read lots of Rudolf Steiner's educational work at Sunbridge Institute in our teacher education programs. But that's not all we read, not by a long shot.


Here's a reading list for a course on the history and philosophy of education in the United States that I have taught at Teachers College and at Sunbridge. Different institutions, same course.


I believe anyone wanting to teach in any school--public, private, Waldorf, Montessori, you name it--in the U.S. should have some foundation in the history and philosophy of education in the U.S. I hope you agree.


Cremin, L. (1977) Traditions of American Education. New York: Basic Books.

Sloan, D. “Introduction [Part II].” [pp. 20-48] In The Great Awakening and American Education.

Edwards, J. (1746/1989) “Selection from ‘A Treatise Concerning Religious Affection.’ ” [pp. 71-88] In The American Intellectual Tradition, vol. 1, 2nd ed. Hollinger, D. and C. Capper, eds. New York: Oxford University Press.

Kaestle, C. (1983) “Prologue: The Founding Fathers and Education.” [pp. 3-13] In Pillars of the Republic. New York: Hill and Wang.

Lemisch, L. (1961). Selection from Benjamin Franklin: The Autobiography and Other Writings. [pp. 92-104] New York: Penguin Books.

Jefferson, T. (1973) “Thomas Jefferson’s Bill for the Diffusion of Knowledge.” [pp. 230-239] In Smith, W., ed. Theories of Education in Early America, 1655-1819. New York: Bobbs-Merrill

Katz, M. (1968) “Introduction.” [pp. 1-17]; “The True Idea of Education.” [pp. 124-130]; and “Conclusion. Educational Reform: Myths and Limits.” [pp. 213-218] In The Irony of Early School Reform. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Kaestle, C. (1983) “Social Change and Education in the American Northeast, 1830-1860.” [pp. 62-74] In Pillars of the Republic. New York: Hill and Wang.

Mann, H. Selections from “Twelfth Annual Report (1848)” [pp. 79-112] In The Republic and the School.

Katz, M. “Alternative Models for American Education.” [pp. 24-57] In Reconstructing American Education.

Emerson, R. “Education.” [pp. 1-34] In Education, An Essay, and Other Selections.

Haefner, G. (1937/1970) “Alcott’s Philosophy of Education” and “Rote Versus Rational Learning.” [pp. 45-47 and 78-98] In A Critical Estimate of the Educational Theories and Practices of A. Bronson Alcott. New York: Greenwood Press.

Alcott, A. B. (1877) Selection from Table-Talk [pp.127-138]. Philadelphia: Albert Saifer.

Anderson, J. (1988) “Ex-Slaves and the Rise of Universal Education, 1860-1880.” [pp. 4-32] In The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Gould, S. (1981) Selections from “Introduction” and  “American Polygeny and Craniometry Before Darwin: Blacks and Indians as Separate, Inferior Species.” In The Mismeasure of Man. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.

Douglass, F. (1845/1986) Selection from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. [pp. 77-87] New York: Penguin.

Washington, B. (1903) “Industrial Education for the Negro.” [pp. 59-62] In Lazerson, M. (1987) American Education in the Twentieth Century. New York: Teachers College Press.

DuBois, W. (1903) “The Talented Tenth.” [pp. 62-66] In Lazerson, M. (1987) American Education in the Twentieth Century. New York: Teachers College Press.

Myrdal, G. (1944) “The Negro School.” [pp. 879-907] In An American Dilemma.

Gates, Jr., H. (1992) “The Master’s Pieces: On Canon Formation and the African-American Tradition.” [pp. 17-42] In Loose Canons: Notes on the Culture Wars. New York: Oxford University Press.

Cott, N. (1977) “Conclusion: On ‘Women’s Sphere’ and Feminism.” [197-208] In The Bonds of Womanhood: “Women’s Sphere” in New England, 1780-1835. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Flexner, E. (1975) “The Intellectual Progress of Women, 1860-1875.” [115-118] In Century of Struggle: The Woman’s Rights Movement in the U.S. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Sexton, P. (1976) “The American Experience.” [39-52] In Women In Education. Bloomington: Phi Delta Kappa.

Tyack, D. (1974) “Teachers and the Male Mystique.” [59-65] In The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Beecher, C. (1835) “The Education of Female Teachers.” [pp. 67-75] In The Educated Woman in America, B. Cross, ed. New York: Teachers College Press.

Gilligan, C. (1982) “Woman’s Place in Man’s Life Cycle.” [pp. 5-23] In In a Different  Voice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Spring, J. (1972) “The Classroom as Factory and Community.” [pp. 44-61] In Education and the Rise of the Corporate State. Boston: Beacon Press.

Tyack, D. (1974) Selection from “Inside the System: The Character of Urban Schools, 1890-1940.” [177-216] In The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education.Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Spencer, H. (1966) “Political Education.” [pp. 113-118] In Herbert Spencer on Education. NY: TC Press.

Sumner, W. (1919/1963) “Who Win By Progress?” [pp. 158-162] In Social Darwinism: Selected Essays of William Graham Sumner. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.

Dewey, J. (1981) “The Child and the Curriculum.” [467-483] In The Philosophy of John Dewey. J. McDermott. 2 vol. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Piaget, J. (1995) “The Stages of Intellectual Development in Childhood and Adolescence” and selections from “Science of Education and the Psychology of the Child.” [814-819; 695-700; 710-719] In H. Gruber and J. Vonneche, eds., The Essential Piaget.

Addams, J. (1994) “Educational Methods (1902).” [98-119] In On Education, Lagemann, E., ed. New York: Transaction Publishing Co.

Counts, G. (1987) “Dare the School Build a New Social Order? (1932)” [97-99] In American Education in the Twentieth Century, Lazerson, M., ed. New York: Teachers College Press.

Dewey, J. (1980) “The School in the Life of the Child.” [21-38] In The School and Society. Carbondale: S. Illinois University Press. Not included in readings.)

Watson, J. (1913) “Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It.” [396-402] In L. Benjamin, ed., A History of Psychology. NY: McGraw-Hill.

Crain, W. (1984) “Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development.” [147-169] In Theories of Development.

Burman, E. (1990) “The Production of Piagetian Psychology.” [151-161] In Deconstructing Developmental Psychology. NY: Routledge.)

Cuban, L. (1986) “Film and Radio: The Promise of Bringing the World into the Classroom.” [9-26] and “Epilogue.” [104-109] In Teachers and Machines: The Classroom Use of Technology Since 1920. New York: Teachers College Press.

Papert, S. (1980) “Introduction: Computers for Children.” [3-18] In Mindstorms: Children, Computers and Powerful Ideas. New York: HarperCollins.

Davy, J. (1984) “Mindstorms in the Lamplight.” [11-20] In The Computer in Education: A Critical Perspective, D. Sloan, ed. New York: Teachers College Press.

Miller, E. (2001) “Seven Disconnections in Our Thinking About Educational Technology.” [1-6] In Sloan, D. and S. Sagarin, eds., Computers, the Internet and Education: Seeking the Human Essentials. NY: Teachers College Press; forthcoming

Talbott, S. (1997) "Why is the Moon Getting Farther Away?" Netfuture 70, 1-5. http://www.ora.com/people/staff/stevet/netfuture/1998/Apr3098.

Spring, J. (1990) "The Conservative Reaction and the Politics of Education” [352-382] In The American School, 1642-1990, 2nd ed. New York: Longman Publishing Company.

Selection from “A Nation At Risk” (1983). [5-36]

“Goals 2000: National Educational Goals” (1996). http://inet.ed.gov/legislation/GOALS2000

(1999) Karp, S. “Equity Suits Clog the Courts” [4-9] and Morales, J. et. al.,“The Courts and Equity: A State-by-State Overview.” [61-67] In Funding For Justice.

Illich, I. (1970) “Why We Must Disestablish School.” [1-24] In Deschooling Society. NY: Harper & Row.

Gatto, J. (1992) "The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher." [1-21] In Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. Philadelphia: New Society Pub.

Weil, S. (2001) “Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies With a View to the Love of God.” [57-66] In Waiting for God. New York: Harper Perennial.

Miller, R. (1990) “Imported Holistic Movements.”[121-139] In What Are Schools For? Holistic Education in the United States. Brandon, VT: Holistic Education Press.

Sloan, D. (1992) “Imagination, Education, and Our Postmodern Possibilities.” Revision, 15, 2, Fall.

Lusseyran, J. (1958) “The Blind In Society.” [pp. 9-20] Proceedings, No. 27, Fall 1973. New York: The Myrin Institute.