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Originally Posted by iolite
My family is a "Post-Waldorf-Survivors". We enrolled my daughter in a Waldorf school in second grade after a disastrous experience in first grade. Her experience in kindergarten (at the same school) was wonderful, though. Toward the last month of the school year, she was sent to the office on an almost daily basis. I finally pulled her out of school. She is an extremely bright and strong willed child and her teacher was an autocratic type and didn't know how to deal with her constant questions and interpreted them as threats to her authority.
Anyway, we sold our house and moved to another city so she could attend Waldorf. We were charmed with the pretty pastel classroom walls, the emphasis on handwork and the fact that they got 2 recesses every day. However, reading is not taught until 2nd grade and a concentrated math class is only taught twice a week. There are no workbooks or modern teaching tools. The curriculum is stuck in the early 19th century (the kids make their own workbooks!), and my daughter's academic skills took a nose dive. She was at grade level in math and above grade level in reading when she finished 1st grade. When we finally pulled her out of Waldorf at the end of the 1st semester in 3rd grade, she was tested at early 2nd grade for math and reading. Waldorf SOUNDS like a lovely idea, but there really is no emphasis in academics in the early grades. Although, Waldorf insists that that changes by 5th or 6th grade, I spoke to a local girls middle school admissions director that routinely accepts Waldorf girls and she told me that all of the incoming Waldorf girls "need catching up". So while Waldorf insists that children get an enriched education and go on to excel at high school and college when they leave is routinely not the case. The children that do excel, have parents that take up the slack and get them tutored to get them ready to matriculate. We had our daughter professionally tutored in math and language arts to get her ready for 4th grade.
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Hi Iolite,
I've heard similar horror stories about Waldorf, but personally I wouldn't "throw out the baby with the bathwater." I homeschooled my children and used many of their ideas, although not the strict curriculum. From what I understand, they deliberately hold off growing the intellect of the child because that's what puts a stop to spiritual experiences in most cases. I did actually study Rudolph Steiner's anthroposophy and I think because his language is not exactly easy reading, a LOT of people teaching Waldorf don't get it. He himself was able to turn a "mentally retarded" child into a doctor...so he was definitely on to something. I won't get into a discussion about that here though.
I take a more balanced approach - as spiritual beings in a human experience I believe we need to be rooted in both worlds and so I have tried to parent my children with that in mind. I don't think that ANY of the educational institutions out there are doing an adequate job nor even if they can because, like the African saying goes, "It takes a village to raise a child." Community, media, culture, peer pressure etc...all influence our kids. My oldest is nearly 19 and I have three kids so I've seen for myself what works, what doesn't work....plus they are individuals with their own interests and agenda.............
BTW, my teacher is really interested in taking education into higher consciousness. The development of the brow chakra in a child is paramount to how well they will do in any endeavor - spiritual or worldly. And as he says "the messenger is the message" - meaning the one teaching/parenting the child needs to live what they are telling the child...because the child will soak that up more than what is said.