Subject: Re: ([someone else]) on an 'unenlightened' comment
Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2001 16:56:50 -0800
From: Sune Nordwall <Sune.Nordwall@home.se>

[someone] wrote:

Here is a list of things I wrote up to ask my son's teacher about a couple of years ago:
What did the teacher answer? 
CONCERNS ABOUT WALDORF EDUCATION
I disagree with much of what I have heard that children are taught in Waldorf schools. Specific teachings that 
you think
are contrary to current scientific knowledge or belief include:

Insects are related to plants;

They are; insects take part in and are a necessary part of the reproduction of many plants, living in symbioses with them and feeding on them as part of this symbiotic relation. Understanding their relation to the 'seed'/reproduction-process of plants (as related to the flowers, where the plants also most distinctly 'evaporates' into small parts; seeds and smells) and in relation to their role in the disintegration and breaking down of nature into basic organic components reflects their nature well in general, I think.
The elements are earth, water, fire and air;
'Elements' in the traditional sense 'are' what since long back in history (for at least 1300 years since Greek Antiquity) was called 'earth', 'water', 'air' and 'fire'. It is the basic term in the history of ideas, when describing the basic components of the world as it for very long was experienced as something that 'lived' between the basic touch experiences of degrees of warmth and humidity (see my article on 'Science' at my site, as also as some of many examples, for example http://www.fsmitha.com/h1/ch10.htm and http://philosophy.wadsworth.com/mitchell wisdom/sample ch.html).

A more 'atoms'-oriented understanding and perspective on substances has later developed during the last hundreds of years, leading to the development and use of the term 'chemical elements' to describe basic substances out of a perspective of the number of protons in the 'core' of their 'atoms'.

'Elements' and 'atoms' constitute the two basic perspectives of substances, the first more reflecting the dynamic aspects of matter, the second more reflecting possible static aspects of matter.

In waldorf schools, that through the grades tries to mediate an understanding of the development of humanity, one in the lower grades mediates an understanding of the 'elements', the basic dynamic aspects of matter, corresponding to an earlier perspective on man and nature.

In the upper grades this in chemistry is developed gradually into an ever more differentiated understanding of the nature of substances from first a chemical perspective, out of basic chemical processes, leading finally to an understanding of the character of the different groups of chemical elements as they are reflected in 'The periodic system' of chemical elements.

Planets influence growth of plants;

The body is made up of the nerve-sense system, the metabolic-muscular system, and the rhythmic system;

That is the basic reflection at the macroscopic level of the polarization of eggs of at least vertebrates and their development via the differentiation into endoderm, mesoderm and exoderm contributing to the basic components of the metabolic-muscular and -reproductory system, the heart as the internal centre of the rhythmic system, and the nervous system.
The heart not a pump, or circulatory system is described, but the role of the heart is not explained;
The role of the heart in the human organism is very complex, as one of the most developed organs sensing and regulating the rhythmic life of the body. The picture of the heart as a 'pump' describes one aspect of this role, its 'will'-aspect, in a very simplified way. 

What the discussion of the heart in WE primarily is concerned with is doing justice to the complexity of the role of the heart in the human body and in human life, of which the picture of it as a mechanical 'pump' only in a very simplified way reflects one aspect.

Plants are like a man upside down;
In wo/man, the basic 'warm' and 'warmth producing' metabolic/reproductive system constitutes the spatially 'lower' part of the human body, and the 'cold' pole of man is his head, as the centre of the nervous system. (In my childhood; quite unanthroposophic, it was an expression among kids: "What are you? Stupid in the root?") In plants this 'warm'- 'cold' polarity of the organism is reversed, with its reproductive system turned upwards instead of downwards.
Goethean vs Newtonian color theory;
They reflect two complementary perspectives on colour; Newton looking at it from the perspective of how some aspects of colour can be described if treating light as idealized 'rays' while Goethe mainly describes other aspects of light and colour, from the perspective of how they appear in nature and their nature in relation to human experience.
There are 12 senses, 
That is probably not taught as such in general at waldorf schools, if not as a description of one possible perspective of some aspects of our sensory processes, reflecting basic qualities of the richness of our sense experience, when describing the anatomy and physiology of the senses.

[what I continued to write, but that did not get into the posting was:]

'What Steiner described as a 'twelvefoldness' of our sense experience, is a similar description in relation the the senses, as Kant described in relation to our thinking, when he described what he thought of as the 12 types of thought categories that according to him determined how we percieved the world
(http://www-philosophy.ucdavis.edu/kant/category.htm)'

corresponding to signs of the zodiac;
That's purely abstract and does not belong in waldorf education as something taught to students.
There are four kingdoms of nature, mineral, plant, animal, and man;
That's the traditional basic way of looking at it and reflects one basic structure of the natural world (see my article on 'science' at my site).
Species were specially created, rather than evolving from one another, and spiritual beings were the creators;
This description mixes anthroposophy with WE. The basic species of the different groups of organisms in nature are described in their nature and character in WE and put in relation to one another from that perspective. Darwinism as the presently dominant view of understanding and interpreting the relation of species is probably described and discussed in most waldorf schools in the upper grades.

I very much doubt that the view that species were specially created and that it was done by spiritual beings is described as a or the natural view is taught at Waldorf schools, except as one view of evolution, held by some.

Left-handedness is a condition that should be  “corrected;”
... that probably was the dominant view in general in education until not very long ago. It was when I went to (public) school. To the extent that there are well-reasoned motives for not trying to 'correct' it, they should be considered in WE.
The "ancients" had powers and knowledge lost to us, such as alchemy and the ability to see things outside the physical realm;
That's how they describe themselves. WE is focused on letting the pupils experience how people and cultures through human cultural history experienced and expressed themselves.
Religious mythology is taught as ancient history, or the theosophical framework for ancient history is taught as fact.
The 'theosophical framework for ancient history' is not 'taught as fact'. A number of the central ancient cultures of humanity, the classical Indian, Persian and Egyptian cultures, the cultures of the 'fertile crescent' and the Greek-Roman cultures are described out of central expressions of them, in mythology, art, and litterature, as cultural expressions of them by themselves.
The ancient Egyptians moved the huge, heavy, stone Pyramid blocks with sound power.

That there is a relationship between the dactylic hexameter of Greek epic/heroic poetry, as in the Odyssey, and the so-called "Platonic Year" (a hypothesis by Plato and others about the precession of the equinoxes over 26,000 years) and the number of breaths/hearbeats in a day.

Too complex to discuss here. See archives.
Astrology is taught in the higher grades.
'Astrology' in the sense of 'how to make horoscopes' does not as such belong to the curriculum of WS', I think, except possibly as an extra-curricular study of how those who do do it, if chosen by the students as a special study and done outside the normal course.

'Astrology' in the sense of describing how the star world was viewed for very long in different cultures, in terms of structuring the experience of it into twelve 'signs' or 'pictures', and how one viewed the elementary qualities of those 'pictures' or 'signs' is one part of understanding our cultural development. 

The stress in WE is on letting the pupils experience how the different cultures experienced and expressed themselves, not primarily on telling the pupils what they shall think about them or how they shall judge them. That's part of the reasoning process with the students, learning them to view things from different perspectives, with not always one being the self evident in all instances.

Also, I have heard of disturbing events at other schools, including:

Parents being asked to leave the school when they questioned or objected to aspects of Waldorf education or anthroposophy.

If parents seriously question or object to basic ways of working in any pedagogical or other tradition, which they have chosen freely, they probably have made the wrong choice of school or tradition and 'should' try to find a school that more corresponds to their views.
Kids being inadequately supervised on the playground to prevent bullying and accidents, on the theory that angels will watch out for them and/or that whatever happens is a result of their "karma."
Carrying the view to any form of extreme is irresponsible. The grown ups in the end are those responsible for what happens to children in their care and can blame noone else for those mishappenings among children that they as grownups could have prevented and that the children expect them as grownups to do.
Dunce caps being used.
If I understand 'dunce caps' correctly, I think in any way using something as 'dunce caps' as making anybody (child) into a 'scapegoat' can only be done in a restricted playful way and if fully aware of what the process of 'scapegoating' can mean, from the perspective of a child being the object of it.

'Scapegoating' is today a global social process, polarizing those who 'have' from those who 'don't have'.

([someone else] later commented on this with:

[Sune re: dunce caps]
"As I tried to hint at with 'If I understand ...', I did not know what the term 'dunce cap' meant and did not find it in a dictionary, so I had to put together the separate meaning of the two words. I'm still not quite sure of what it means or more clearly how it is used in US."

Ok, Sune, I give you credit that you just didn't know what dunce caps are. I  doubt many adults in the US have personal experience of them, either; they kind of went out of style about 60 years ago. Waldorf has a lot of anachronistic things like this still hanging around that derive from medieval or worse child rearing notions.

At any rate, they are not about "role playing." You stand in the corner wearing this cap to show you are a dunce - idiot. It's a punishment. You thought it was sort of like a court jester, maybe?.

And I answered:

'Yes'}

Finally, I have heard of child studies being performed to determine the child’s karma and destiny, without the involvement or knowledge of the parents. Shouldn’t the parents be involved, or at least have knowledge of, the results of studies being done on their children?
This is moving in a sensitive gray zone, I think, difficult to discuss in short in a more meaningful way.

Regards,

Sune Nordwall
Stockholm, Sweden

http://hem.passagen.se/thebee/indexeng.htm
- a site on science, homeopathy, cosmological cell biology and
EU as a mechanical esoteric temple and threefolding of society