dysTalk Flip - Steiner Waldorf Problems - General Advice Other - Forum - dysTalk

I have dyslexia and Steiner education can help. the problem is in the parents not understanding dyslexia; psychologist suggesting they understand which they don't fully, and teachers primary/secondary/tertiary not being taught how to teach correctly to begin no matter if they are Steiner trained or not, rather than creating specialists, create teachers who are dynamic to begin with and teach all..

29/02/2012 00:24:20
David

We withdrew our daughter from a Steiner school in class 5 ( year 6 )after her class teacher labelled her a unwilling to cooperate. Through class 2/3 we questioned her academic progress,we were told by her teacher and some parents told us to trust the system and that she was doing well and was a lovely child. A new teacher arrived in class 4 . She told us our child had multiple issues and was terribley behaved. We know realise she has mild dyslexia and dyspraxia and needs some specific teaching. The Steiner school did nothing but condemn our child as the problem. They have totally betrayed our trust and loyalty.

01/01/2011 20:15:13
Ruby

We have found our children are very happy at a Waldorf School. Particulary after all the bullying and hurt endured with mainstream education. We were lucky not to have needed a child psychologist to correct the damage done after the amount of pressure put on my son to learn to read at the local primary. Disgraceful.

17/11/2009 16:30:01
fiona wood

I found your site very useful; thanks. The help it has given us with dyslexia and learning strategies is thoughtful, practical, and for us, invaluable.

I wasn't sure which forum to write in, as one of our children has dyslexia. My main reason for posting is to comment on Steiner education, which is often seen as a haven for those with dyslexia, or the not so academic because of it's so called concentration on creativeness and craft.

Since leaving this ''community'' we've found out so much , the things the school's PR take great trouble to cover up. Steiner Waldorf education isn't really about giving children knowledge, arming them with a desire to question and extend their flare for curiosity. It's about seeing them through their ''incarnation'', helping them with the ''karmic'' lessons they need in this life, in order for them to reincarnate on a higher spiritual plane in the next.

Yes, it sounds bonkers, it is bonkers.

We thought the Steiner system would be creative, liberal and give scope for our children's individual talents and characters; it was a disaster, rigid, boring, copied restricted work, following frankly bizarre and dangerous beliefs. (It is based on anthroposophy, the teachers often had no qualifications apart from Steiner training, which is nearly all done with Steiner's work. The educationalist David Mollet calls it brainwashing and indoctrination)

Consequently our children have taken much time and effort to catch up; dyslexia isn't recognised except as an ''incarnation problem''. Everything is about karma. Our youngest was encouraged to change from being left handed, and had to do things right handed (left handedness is to do with a weakness in a past life), children are classified by medieval ''temperaments''- melancholic, phlegmatic etc, which, along with their race and roots, dictates how the teacher treats them.

One of our children has had esteem problems because bullying was more or less ignored (it is seen as karma).

After doing some research, we discovered that the same problems we had, happen in Steiner Waldorf schools all over the world. Some of these people's experiences can be read in the article section here.

www.waldorfcritics.org/active/articles.html

http://sites.google.com/site/waldorfwatch/welcome

15/07/2009 13:04:05
Cathy