return to WCA Archive Index
There are 8 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Franz Winkler
From: Roger Rawlings
2a. Re: Alexis Carrel
From: Roger Rawlings
3a. Process/Growth of Mind in alternative education
From: Brad Martin
3b. Re: Process/Growth of Mind in alternative education
From: Peter Staudenmaier
3c. Re: Process/Growth of Mind in alternative education
From: M Howell
3d. Admin: ad hominem warning (Peter Staudenmaier)
From: Dan Dugan
3e. Re: Process/Growth of Mind in alternative education
From: Dan Dugan
3f. Admin: Re: [wc] Process/Growth of Mind in alternative education
From: Dan Dugan
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1. Franz Winkler
Posted by: "Roger Rawlings" downfromfog yahoo.com downfromfog
Date: Fri Aug 31, 2007 8:19 am ((PDT))
Perhaps I should explain what I mean when I call Winkler my Waldorf's guru (or am I
dragging out this excursion to the periphery too much?). To the best of my knowledge,
most students had little or no contact with Winkler. However, I know that faculty members
consulted him; some surely used him as their primary physician; and he occasionally gave
evening lectures, etc., at the school.
Beyond doubt, the presiding authority at the school was the headmaster, John Fentress
Gardner. He and Winkler were in frequent contact, but I feel sure that Gardner considered
himself at least Winkler's equal as an important Anthroposophist, and he probably
jealously guarded his authority, attempting to curb Winkler's involvement with the school.
Winkler's great advantage over Gardner÷and the reason he had a deep, if generally
hidden, importance to the school÷is that he seemed to be a warmer, more empathetic,
"wise," and "spiritual" person than Gardner. Indeed, Winkler was thought to be clairvoyant.
Gardner was an impressive figure, very smart, but also he was generally seen to be cold,
forbidding, and potentially explosive (he had to work hard to control his temper, I believe).
The question of clairvoyance ultimately played a great role in both men's lives. Winkler was
thought to have a direct line to the spirit realm (see the title of his book, MAN, THE BRIDGE
BETWEEN TWO WORLDS). Gardner apparently strove for many years to follow Steiner's
instructions in order to gain clairvoyance, but he apparently was unable to convince
himself that he had succeeded÷he evidently never directly saw what Steiner claimed to
have seen. I'm told by an old friend who knew Gardner in his final years that Gardner
eventually despaired and turned away from Anthroposophy to charismatic Christianity, and
he began talking directly to Jesus. This account is at least partially borne out by Gardner's
pamphlet, TWO PATHS TO THE SPIRIT: CHARISMATIC CHRISTIANITY AND ANTHROPOSOPHY
(Great Barrington, MA: Golden Stone Press, 1990).
--Roger
Messages in this topic (1)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2a. Re: Alexis Carrel
Posted by: "Roger Rawlings" downfromfog yahoo.com downfromfog
Date: Fri Aug 31, 2007 8:30 am ((PDT))
Hi, all.
[This message may appear twice. Sorry. I sent it before my posting "Franz Winkler," but it
seems to have disappeared in cyberspace.]
Please bear in mind that I do not mean to make a big deal out of Alexis Carrel. I'm not at
all sure that he had any direct links with Anthroposophy. Bear in mind, too, that my
memories of my schooldays reach back approximately half a century÷they should not be
taken as entirely reliable. In my formal essays, I attempt to compensate for the fallibility of
memory by including extensive research that makes my memories at least plausible. In the
case of Alexi Carrel, my memories are sketchy and I have not undertaken much research.
That said, here is another apparent link between Carrel and Anthroposophy (the first link I
discussed has to do with ranking higher and lower human types). The second link has to
do with the environment and organic farming:
Feeding the Soils That Feed Us
(From Spring 1997)
by Anna Bond
So long as one feeds on food from unhealthy soil, the spirit will lack the stamina to free
itself from the prison of the body.
÷Rudolf Steiner
Our planet's topsoils are tired, hungry and depleted. We've overworked them, poisoned
them with synthetic chemicals and stripped them of their green robe. In turn, we find
ourselves tired, depleted and malnourished despite being overfed. Degenerative disease
and crime are at an all time high. Growing numbers of people depend on addictive drugs÷
recreational and prescription÷to survive. Violence has become routine in families,
neighborhoods and continents.
How do we get to the roots of such pervasive disharmony? Over 80 years ago, the eminent
Nobel Prize-winning scientist Dr. Alexis Carrel cut to the heart of the matter: diseases are
created chiefly when we destroy the harmony reigning among mineral substances present
in infinitesimal amounts in air, water, food and÷most crucially÷soil.
http://www.organicanews.com/news/article.cfm?story_id=70
-----
To try to answer Peter more fully, here is (I think) everything I can remember about Carrel
as he "manifested" himself at my Waldorf:
His book sort of floated around the periphery of our "education." Carrel's name was known
to many of us, and at least some of us read the book.
I distinctly recall that one of my classmates, the son of a faculty member who almost
surely was an Anthroposophist, read MAN, THE UNKNOWN intently and discussed it with
me.
I'm not sure that Carrel was ever mentioned in any of our classes, but I vaguely recall his
name and work coming up in at least one of the high school's weekly assemblies.
I don't recall whether the headmaster actually handed me a copy of MAN, THE UNKNOWN
or merely recommended it to me. The latter seems more probable.
His recommendation was probably that I check out the copy in the school's library. I
cannot swear that the library had a copy, but I feel almost certain that it did. (As I've said
before, the library's collection was quite small, and it tilted heavily toward weird and
fantasical works.)
I occasionally was sent by my parents to see (or be seen by) an Athroposophical doctor in
NYC: Franz Winkler, author of MAN, THE BRIDGE BETWEEN TWO WORLDS. (Fortunately,
most of my medical care was handled by conventional physicians. My meetings with
Winkler consisted of brief physical exams and conversation÷this was meant to be therapy
or spiritual guidance. Winkler was, in effect, the guru for our school÷Steiner's stand-in, as
it were. I believe that Winkler claimed to be clairvoyant. In any case, Winkler rarely, if ever,
prescibed any medicines for me, but he gave me various meditative exercises÷which I
now realize were consistent with Steiner's directions on how to gain higher consciousness.
Again, fortunately, I was not scrupulous about doing the exercises. [The reason my
parents and, I assume, my headmaster thought I needed therapy was, as I have written
elsewhere, that I was gradually becoming suspicious of Waldorf and gradually developing a
deep sadness. For these very reasons, I paid little attention to Winkler, thank goodness.]
Winkler meant so little to me that I omitted him almost entirely from my memoir.) I
believe, but I cannot prove, that Winkler had a copy of MAN, THE UNKNOWN in his waiting
room.
Unless something else emerges from my unconscious, that's it. I again urge everyone not
to attach too much importance to this matter. At most, Carrel was a tangential figure at
my school and in no way central to the school's Anthroposphical faith.
--Roger
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3a. Process/Growth of Mind in alternative education
Posted by: "Brad Martin" bkmartin6 hotmail.com martinbk225
Date: Fri Aug 31, 2007 10:44 am ((PDT))
The roots of many twentieth century alternative school movements go
back to three European philosopher/educators: Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, and Friedrich Froebel. In his 1762 book
Emile, Rousseau argued that education should follow the child's
natural growth rather than the demands of society, which, he claimed,
tend to thwart all that is organic, natural and spiritual.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF ALTERNATIVE EDUCATION
http://www.educationrevolution.org/history.html
by Ron Miller
Why are there "alternative" schools? Our system of public schooling
was first organized in the 1830's to provide a common, culturally
unifying educational experience for all children, yet from the very
beginning, certain groups of educators, parents, and students
themselves have declined to participate in this system. Their reasons
are various, and the forms of schooling--and nonschooling--that they
have chosen instead are equally diverse. The history of alternative
education is a colorful story of social reformers and individualists,
religious believers and romantics; despite their differences,
however, they share an especially strong interest in young people's
social, moral, emotional and intellectual development, and, more
deliberately than most public school programs, they have practiced
educational approaches that aim primarily to nourish these qualities.
Historians of public education have described how, during the period
between 1837 (when Horace Mann became the first powerful leader of a
state education agency) and the early twentieth century (when new
scientific theories were applied to psychology, learning, and
organizational management), a particularly narrow model of schooling
became solidly established as the "one best system" of public
education. According to this model, the purpose of schooling was to
overcome cultural diversity and personal uniqueness in order to mold
a loyal citizenry and an effective workforce for the growing
industrial system. Education aimed primarily to discipline the
developing energies of young people for the sake of political and
social uniformity as well as the success of the emerging corporate
economy. In the early twentieth century, these goals were concisely
expressed by the term "social efficiency," which was often used by
educational leaders.
Many people are attracted to alternative schools and home education
because they feel that this agenda of "social efficiency" does not
allow for such values as individuality, creativity, democratic
community life and spiritual development. Indeed, Horace Mann's
efforts to centralize public schooling were opposed from the start by
religious leaders and other critics who argued that education is a
community, family, and personal endeavor, not a political program to
be mandated by the state. For example, many of the Transcendentalist
thinkers of the mid-nineteenth century-Emerson, Thoreau, Alcott,
Brownson, Ripley--argued against the rigidity of public schooling and
several of them started their own alternative schools. The Temple
School in Boston, run by Bronson Alcott between 1834 and 1838 (with
his daughter Louisa May as one of the students), is an outstanding
historical model of alternative education; Alcott rejected the
teaching methods of his time (rote memorization and recitation) and
encouraged Socratic dialogue, with a deeply moral and spiritual
emphasis.
The roots of many twentieth century alternative school movements go
back to three European philosopher/educators: Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, and Friedrich Froebel. In his 1762 book
Emile, Rousseau argued that education should follow the child's
natural growth rather than the demands of society, which, he claimed,
tend to thwart all that is organic, natural and spiritual. This
emphasis on the innate development of human nature became the primary
philosophical basis for many alternative movements in education. It
has influenced progressive educators as well as generations of
libertarian thinkers. In the early 1800's, the Swiss humanitarian
Pestalozzi opened schools for orphans, adopting Rousseau's
principles. His work inspired educators in Europe and America
(including Alcott). One of his disciples, Joseph Neef, emigrated to
the U.S. and founded child-centered schools in three states between
1809 and 1827. Froebel was another teacher at Pestalozzi's school,
and later became famous as the founder of the kindergarten concept;
it is not well known that Froebel envisioned all levels of schooling
as being nourishing "gardens" for children's spontaneous development.
This philosophical tradition strongly influenced Francis Parker, who,
with John Dewey, originated the progressive education movement late
in the nineteenth century. A public school superintendent, head of a
teacher education program, and popular speaker and author, Parker
believed that education should serve the needs of children and
conform to their styles of thinking and learning. Although Parker
himself (and many subsequent progressive educators) tried to reform
the "one best system" from within, his influence spread to many
alternative schools during the first two decades of this century,
such as those associated with progressive educators like Margaret
Naumberg, Helen Parkhurst, and Caroline Pratt, among many others.
At the same time, two European educational pioneers designed
alternative methods with roots going back to Rousseau, Pestalozzi and
Froebel. Maria Montessori was an Italian pediatrician/psychiatrist
who studied child development with a meticulous scientific eye as
well as a deep religious faith in the divine essence of the human
being. She opened her first "children's home" in 1907. Rudolf Steiner
was an Austrian philosopher/mystic who developed a spiritual science
called Anthroposophy that he applied to the fields of medicine,
agriculture, architecture, and the arts, as well as education. He
founded the first Waldorf school in 1919. Both of these methods have
evolved into important international movements for educational change.
It was during the 1960's that alternative education grew into a
widespread social movement. During this decade, of course,
countercultural themes that had always been marginal and virtually
invisible--racial justice, pacifism, feminism, and opposition to
corporate capitalism--exploded into public view. Mass demonstrations,
alternative lifestyles and publications, and the urban riots and
assassinations of that period led to a deep examination of modern
society and institutions. Educators and other writers--including Paul
Goodman, John Holt, Jonathan Kozol, Herbert Kohl, George Dennison,
James Herndon and Ivan Illich--launched passionate attacks against
the "one best system" and its agenda of social efficiency. The period
between 1967 and 1972, especially, was a time of crisis for public
education, when student demonstrations, teacher strikes, and a deep
questioning of traditional assumptions shook the system to its core.
In these few years alone, over 500 "free schools"--nonpublic schools
based on countercultural if not revolutionary ideas--were founded.
Open classrooms and magnet schools (public schools of choice) were
introduced. And the spirit of Rousseau, Pestalozzi and Froebel began
to seep into academic and professional circles, leading, by the end
of the 1970's, to approaches that came to be called "humanistic"
and "holistic" education.
The counterculture did not prevail; over the past twenty years,
traditional values have been strongly reasserted in politics and in
education. The 1983 report by President Reagan's Commission on
Excellence in Education, A Nation at Risk, was a powerful statement
of the traditional goals of American public schooling--social
efficiency and economic growth--and it led to a tidal wave of
political grandstanding, legislative mandates, and
frantic "restructuring" mainly intended to produce better disciplined
citizens and workers for a competitive global economy. George
Bush's "America 2000" agenda became Bill Clinton's "Goals 2000"
program--now enacted into law--which continued this top-down movement
to harness the young generation's energies to the needs of the
corporate economy. Those who worked for progressive, child-centered,
or humanistic education within the system during the heyday of the
counterculture have found little support for their vision in recent
years, and many have turned to alternative settings.
Within the public system there are now many alternative programs for
students "at risk" of dropping out because they are so completely
alienated by the impersonal routines of conventional schooling. And
there are still significant pockets of progressive educators and
related groups--such as those promoting whole language and
cooperative learning--who remain determined to infuse public
education with more democratic, humanistic purposes. But despite
these oases of student-centered learning, the educational climate
during the past decade has been affected by ever tighter state and
federal control over learning, leading to still further testing,
politically mandated "outcomes," and national standards. There is
some hope in the relatively new concept of "charter schools," which
allow parents and innovative educators to receive public funding with
less bureaucratic intervention, although it remains to be seen how
much freedom such schools will be allowed if national standards begin
to be enforced.
As government school systems become increasingly yoked to the
purposes of the corporate economy, it is likely that thousands more
families and educators will turn to the more democratic and person-
centered values represented by alternative schools and home
education. For the past century and half, alternative schools have
been isolated countercultural enclaves with little influence on
mainstream educational thinking and policy. But in
the "postindustrial" or "postmodern" era that appears to be emerging
now, the industrial-age model of "social efficiency" is possibly
starting to become obsolete.
Perhaps, as Ivan Illich envisioned in his 1970 book Deschooling
Society and James Moffett describes in his recent book The Universal
Schoolhouse, the idea of a public school system may have outlived its
usefulness. According to these and other authors, in a democratic,
information-rich society, learning should take place everywhere in
the community, and young people should have access to mentors who
nourish their diverse personal interests and styles of learning. We
have a long way to go before this sort of system is in place, but if
our society does in fact move in this direction, it may well be
alternative educators who show the way.
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
3b. Re: Process/Growth of Mind in alternative education
Posted by: "Peter Staudenmaier" pstaud hotmail.com pstauden
Date: Fri Aug 31, 2007 12:05 pm ((PDT))
Brad's message begins with the following sentence:
)The roots of many twentieth century alternative school movements go
)back to three European philosopher/educators: Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
)Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, and Friedrich Froebel.
If Brad could somehow manage to actually open up a book by Rudolf Steiner,
he might discover what Steiner had to say about these three figures. Steiner
explicitly defined Waldorf education *against* the work of Rousseau,
Pestalozzi, and Froebel. Since many of Steiner's Waldorf-related writings
have been translated into English, this should be easy enough to determine
even for folks like Brad. Let's start with Rousseau. In Steiner's
pedagogical works, he flatly dismisses Rousseau as a "philistine" (Rudolf
Steiner, Die Erneuerung der pŠdagogisch-didaktischen Kunst durch
Geisteswissenschaft, p. 227). Steiner is somewhat more sympathetic to
Pestalozzi and Froebel as personalities, but similarly rejects their work as
a possible model or source for Waldorf:
Steiner says that Pestalozziâs work is simply ãnot suited for other
educatorsä (Steiner, Idee und Praxis der Waldorfschule, p. 232; see also the
critical references to Pestalozzi in Steiner, Erziehungs- und
Unterrichtsmethoden auf anthroposophischer Grundlage, p. 135, and Steiner,
Die Erneuerung der pŠdagogisch-didaktischen Kunst durch Geisteswissenschaft,
p. 45, among others).
How about Froebel? Steiner says Froebel's ideas are well intentioned, but
inappropriate to ãthe true development of childrenä (Steiner, Der
pŠdagogische Wert der Menschenerkenntnis und der Kulturwert der PŠdagogik,
p. 112); while Froebel had some agreeable thoughts on education, they don't
work, and need to be replaced by anthroposophical ideas, the only possible
basis for reshaping education properly (Steiner, Rudolf Steiner in der
Waldorfschule, pp. 181-183; I think this book, too, is available in
English).
Then there's Steiner's conferences with the original Waldorf teachers, which
are definitely available in English. Brad, why not take a moment to look it
up? Here Steiner says that Pestalozzi and Froebel have a number of nice
abstract ideas, but there is no "inner spirit" to their pedagogical systems:
Rudolf Steiner, Konferenzen mit den Lehrern der Freien Waldorfschule in
Stuttgart 1919 bis 1924, vol. I, p. 163.
So much for Rudolf Steiner as heir to the alternative educational traditions
of Rousseau, Pestalozzi, and Froebel.
Brad's post ends with this sentence:
)We
)have a long way to go before this sort of system is in place, but if
)our society does in fact move in this direction, it may well be
)alternative educators who show the way.
Yep. That's why many alternative educators are critics of Waldorf, something
Brad finds literally incomprehensible. The best-known critics of Waldorf in
Germany, above all Heiner Ullrich but also Achim Leschinsky and others, are
prominent proponents of alternative education. That's proponents of
alternative education, Brad, not opponents. (For those who have missed
Brad's prior sojourns on the list, I explained all of this to Brad very
clearly and in considerable detail over four years ago.)
For North American examples, consider Matt Hern, editor of Deschooling Our
Lives -- a book Brad has evidently never heard of, a classic of alternative
education, which contains essays by several of the people discussed in the
very article that Brad just posted -- and a very active participant in the
alternative education movement. Matt is a good deal more critical of Waldorf
than I am. But for Brad and others like him, these folks are all really
enemies of alternative education, because they are critical of Waldorf
(except that Brad sometimes gets confused and thinks that Ullrich, for
example, is actually a supporter of Waldorf...).
So much for the growth of mind. Greetings to all,
Peter Staudenmaier
_________________________________________________________________
Booking a flight? Know when to buy with airfare predictions on MSN Travel.
http://travel.msn.com/Articles/aboutfarecast.aspx&ocid=T001MSN25A07001
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
3c. Re: Process/Growth of Mind in alternative education
Posted by: "M Howell" mejhowell bigpond.com medgertonhowell2002
Date: Fri Aug 31, 2007 1:50 pm ((PDT))
http://www.salon.com/books/int/2007/08/30/kozol/print.html
Salon.com
August 30, 2007
Teachers: Be subversive
Jonathan Kozol, author of "Letters to a Young Teacher,"
talks with Salon about why No Child Left Behind
squelches learning and reading Rilke's sonnets to first
graders.
By Matthew Fishbane
School days, writes Jonathan Kozol, should be full of
"aesthetic merriment." But instead, too many of
America's 93,000 public schools, particularly those in
the inner cities, are what the poet Gwendolyn Brooks
once called "uglifying," brimming with demoralizing
indignities. Those indignities -- and also the acts of
"stalwart celebration" that surface in classrooms
across the country -- are the topic of Kozol's latest
book, "Letters to a Young Teacher."
Kozol, who will turn 71 this year, has written about
race and class in the classroom before, most recently
in 2005's "The Shame of the Nation" -- and in his
latest work, an undercurrent of anger still simmers.
But rather than descend into polemic, Kozol returns in
"Letters" to his teaching roots, using a correspondence
with a teacher he calls Francesca as a chance to pay
tribute to the men and women who devote their lives to
children every day.
Francesca herself is "semi-fictionalized," a stand-in
for the young educators -- almost all women -- who have
been writing in remarkable volume to Kozol over the
years. Still, Kozol insists that Francesca "is a very
real person," "marvelously well-educated" and certified
as a teacher. Written for an audience that is just
becoming politically engaged, their exchange gives
Kozol a forum in which to address No Child Left Behind,
high-stakes testing, vouchers and other privatizing
forces in public schools -- while at the same time
leaving ample room to praise and celebrate the
inspiring, human qualities he encounters in teachers,
"empathetic principals" and, of course, kids.
)From page to page, the focus of Kozol's "Letters"
shuttles from the mundane to the profound -- from loose
teeth to the democratic aims of education -- in a
thoughtful first-person that echoes another "buoyant
spirit" of New England: Henry David Thoreau, who wrote
in "Civil Disobedience," "as for supporting schools, I
am doing my part to educate my fellow countrymen now."
And in fact, Kozol's goals -- in calling for "a
sweeping, intellectually sophisticated political
upheaval" -- are no less lofty.
Salon spoke to Kozol from his home in Byfield, Mass.,
about the fun of first graders, the trouble with
"utilitarian" teaching, and why No Child Left Behind is
"the worst education legislation" in 40 years.
Unlike some of your previous books, "Letters" strikes
me as being more about teachers than students.
Yes, that's true, although the students -- especially
because they're young and so delightfully impertinent
-- force their way into the story repeatedly. Like most
teachers, Francesca talks about the children all the
time.
But it's true, the main purpose of the book is to
describe what it's like to be a young teacher just
beginning in an inner-city school at a time when there
are unprecedented pressures, in part because of No
Child Left Behind. It records a year of correspondence
and visits with an irreverent young woman who also
happens to be an excellent teacher. I think of the book
as an invitation to a beautiful profession.
Can you really call it an "invitation" when a huge part
of your work is describing the many challenges teachers
face in urban schools?
Well, teachers have been profoundly demoralized in
recent years and are often treated with contempt by
politicians. There's a great deal of reckless rhetoric
in Washington about the mediocrity of the teaching
profession -- and I don't find that to be true at all.
We are attracting better teachers and better-educated
teachers today than at any time since I started out in
1964.
I emphasize teachers because they are largely left out
of the debate. None of the bombastic reports that come
from Washington and think tanks telling us what needs
to be "fixed" -- I hate such a mechanistic word, as if
our schools were automobile engines -- ever asks the
opinions of teachers. By far the most important factor
in the success or failure of any school, far more
important than tests or standards or business-model
methods of accountability, is simply attracting the
best-educated, most exciting young people into urban
schools and keeping them there.
In your letters, you spend a lot of time reassuring
Francesca that it's OK to follow her instincts, or even
encouraging her to be subversive, to disregard school
policies if they don't make sense to her.
I would say pleasantly subversive. In part that is
Francesca's character anyway -- but I do recommend an
attitude of irreverence on the part of teachers who are
having tests and standards shoved down their throats
from Washington. We try so hard to recruit exciting
teachers into these schools, but nearly 50 percent of
them quit within three years. In order to survive, they
need to keep their individuality, their personalities,
intact, and they need to fight to defend a sense of
joyfulness that brought them to this profession in the
first place.
In most suburban schools, teachers know their kids are
going to pass the required tests anyway -- so No Child
Left Behind is an irritant in a good school system, but
it doesn't distort the curriculum. It doesn't transform
the nature of the school day. But in inner-city
schools, testing anxiety not only consumes about a
third of the year, but it also requires every minute of
the school day in many of these inner-city schools to
be directed to a specifically stated test-related
skill. Very little art is allowed into these
classrooms. Little social studies, really none of the
humanities.
In some embattled school systems these high-stakes
tests start in first grade, or even kindergarten, in
order to get the kids used to the protocol of test
taking -- yet a vast majority of low-income kids have
no preschool before they enter kindergarten. According
to Marian Wright Edelman of the Children's Defense
Fund, less than 50 percent of eligible children are
provided with Head Start nowadays, and it's even worse
in the poorest inner-city districts. Meanwhile, the
children of my affluent Harvard classmates, or their
grandchildren, typically have three years of
developmental pre-K education. Then a few years later,
they all have to take the same exam -- presuming the
affluent kids go to public schools -- and so some are
being tested on three or four years of education and
some on twice as many years.
Is that what you said recently when you went to speak
to the Democrats on the Senate education committee?
Yes. I think the tests in their present form are
useless, because although President Bush promoted them
by saying, "All we want to do is help these teachers
see where their students need more help," the results
typically don't come back before the end of June. What
is the teacher supposed to do when she finally sees the
test scores in the middle of the summer, send a
postcard to little Shaniqua, saying, you know, "If I
knew last winter what I know now, I would have put more
emphasis on the those skills"?
I recommended to the Democrats that they replace these
tests with diagnostic tests, which are given
individually by the teacher to her students. They are
anxiety-free and you don't have to wait six months for
McGraw-Hill or Harcourt to mis-score them, as they
often do. The teacher gets results immediately. And
it's not time stolen from education because she
actually learns while she's giving this test.
After the Supreme Court decision last June on
segregation in Seattle's school districts, you wrote a
critical Op-Ed in the New York Times about a transfer
provision in No Child Left Behind that says that if a
student is in a perennially failing school, that child
must be permitted to transfer to a high-performing
school. Can you explain your argument?
The idea of the provision is that a child's parents
should be able to transfer the child to a successful
school in their district if the child's school has
proven to be a hopeless failure. The trouble is, there
aren't enough schools in overwhelmingly poor and
minority inner-city districts to which a child can
transfer. So less than 3 percent of eligible kids have
transferred during the years since No Child Left Behind
came into effect.
I proposed that the transfer provision be amended not
only to permit but to require states to make cross-
district transfers possible -- so that a student in the
South Bronx could be transferred to Bronxville, which
is, I have tested in my car, only about a 12-minute
drive. It would be a very simple amendment to add and
it would drive a mighty blow against the deepening re-
segregation of our urban schools, without making any
reference to race. Justice Kennedy, in his partial
concurrence, pointed out that strategies like these,
which are race-neutral, would certainly be
constitutional.
How would those changes help to retain the wonderful
young teachers you write about?
First of all, it would immediately relieve that sense
that there's always a sword above their heads, and that
sword is empirically measurable testing. It would
relieve the sense that every minute of the day has to
be allocated to a predesignated skill. It would free
them from the absurdity of posting numbers and the
language of standards on their blackboards, which are
of absolutely no benefit to a child. As Francesca once
pointed out to me, no child's going to come back 10
years later and say, "I'm so grateful to you for
teaching me proficiency 56b."
It would free the teachers from all of that, and it
would allow these young teachers, most of whom have
majored in liberal arts, and who love literature and
poetry, to flood the classroom with all those treasures
that they themselves enjoyed when they were children,
most of them in very good suburban school districts.
You use a lot of military language like "combat,"
"assaults" and "capitulation" and return again and
again to the idea that the administrative brass doesn't
know what the grunts are living through. Are our
schools really war zones?
Yes, they are. You rightly called teachers "grunts," in
that they are the ones who are doing the actual work.
In the inner-city schools these classrooms are not
simply the front lines of education: They're the front
lines of democracy. No matter what happens in a child's
home, no matter what other social and economic factors
may impede a child, there's no question in my mind that
a first-rate school can transform almost everything. So
long as the teacher is energized and highly skilled and
her personal sense of exhilaration in the company of
children is not decapitated by a Dickensian agenda.
I've received at least 30,000 letters, calls and e-
mails or written notes handed to me from young teachers
in the past two years alone: These teachers by and
large are very well-educated and they are highly
idealistic. And they know something that the testing
and standards experts don't seem to know: namely, that
the main reason for learning to read is for the
pleasure it brings us, not for the utilitarian payoff
of being able to read your orders.
So you take issue with the argument that children need
to be prepared for the realities of the marketplace.
But isn't that what they will face?
Yes, children do have to be prepared for the economic
world -- but the invasion of the public schools by
mercantile values has deeply demoralized teachers. I've
been in classrooms where the teacher has to write a so-
called mission statement that says, "The mission of
this school is to sharpen the competitive edge of
America in the global marketplace."
Francesca once said to me, "I'm damned if I'm going to"
-- I don't think she said "damned," because she's too
polite; maybe "darned" -- "treat these little babies as
commodities or products. Why should they care about
global markets? They care about bellybuttons, and
wobbly teeth, and beautiful books about caterpillars."
I think we have to protect those qualities.
Most of the teachers we're trying so hard to recruit
into these schools, then driving out, tend to be the
children of the 1960s generation, and they are steeped
in civil rights values, and those who have gone to good
colleges and universities come into these schools with
what I would call almost a preferential option for
minority children of the poor. But no matter what
they've read beforehand, they're generally stunned at
the profound class and racial segregation they
encounter. It's not as if they didn't know that this
was the case, but when they're suddenly in a class, as
Francesca was, with not a single white child and only
three white kids in the entire building, it hits them
hard.
Is that how Francesca experienced it?
Francesca and I once had a long talk. I tend to say
that we've basically ripped apart the legacy of Brown
v. Board of Education, but it was she who first pointed
out to me that we haven't even lived up to the mandate
of Plessy v. Ferguson, because our schools are
obviously separate but they're certainly not equal.
Now, especially with the recent Supreme Court decision
[on segregation], there's a sense of profound anger
among these teachers. A sense that everything they grew
up to believe is good and right is being discarded by
our society. They also note that despite all the
fatuous claims from the secretary of education, the
achievement gap between the races has not closed. And
even worse, the cultural gap has actually widened
because of the narrowing of the curriculum in these
schools.
Francesca, despite the fact that she refused to teach
to the test, managed to be very effective in teaching
skills, and her children did well. Apparently you don't
need to hire Princeton Review to come into your school
and use scarce education funds to pay them to create
artificial test-score gains.
You're an advocate now. Have you ever considered going
back to the classroom yourself?
All the time. When I was visiting Francesca's class, I
was jealous of her. When I give lectures what usually
happens is some teacher or principal in the audience
will grab me at the end and say, "Do you have four
hours tomorrow morning before you leave? Would you
visit my school?" and I always try to do it. And then I
don't want to leave because it really brings my spirits
back. I love the unpredictable. I love the whimsical in
children. I love it when a child asks me what you might
think is a funny question, like, "Do you feel sad
because you're old?" Or, "Is it lonesome to write?"
It's a wonderful question, don't you think?
I'm still very healthy and I sometimes think I would
love to go back and teach first grade or second grade.
First grade, under the best conditions, is what I call
the miracle year, because that's the year when -- if
you're in a reasonably good situation, and if your
children have a little pre-K, and if they've had a good
kindergarten year -- it's in first grade that you see
the children go from knowing letters only as images,
the shapes of the letters, to suddenly writing and
reading. Writing real sentences and reading real books.
That's a miracle to me. To me that's more dramatic than
anything that happened to me at my four years at
Harvard.
This book revisits some of the topics -- like dealing
with unsupportive administrators -- from your 1981
book, "On Being a Teacher." Why did you feel the need
to return to those subjects?
Well, I've spent more time with other teachers since
then and spent so much time in classrooms that -- I
can't quite explain why. I know this book has a
political cutting edge and it's going to make me a lot
of enemies in Washington from the right-wing think-tank
types. I'm sure they won't be sending me any bouquets
from the Heritage Foundation, or the Manhattan
Institute. But it's the first book I've ever written
where I actually enjoyed it every day, and it's because
there's enough in it, and because I think of it sort of
as an invitation to the dance. I think the book, in a
strange way, is kind of a cheerful book. Wouldn't you
say so?
Somewhere between naive romance and sophisticated
idealism.
I hope it's not naive. It's not a theoretical book,
like, wouldn't this be wonderful? or something. It's
based on being there. Francesca's kids did well. At the
same time, she did not stick to the standards. I don't
think there's anything in No Child Left Behind about
reading the sonnets of Rilke to first graders.
-- By Matthew Fishbane
Copyright (c)2007 Salon Media Group, Inc.
----- Original Message -----
From: Brad Martin
To: waldorf-critics yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2007 3:42 AM
Subject: [wc] Process/Growth of Mind in alternative education
The roots of many twentieth century alternative school movements go
back to three European philosopher/educators: Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, and Friedrich Froebel. In his 1762 book
Emile, Rousseau argued that education should follow the child's
natural growth rather than the demands of society, which, he claimed,
tend to thwart all that is organic, natural and spiritual.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF ALTERNATIVE EDUCATION
http://www.educationrevolution.org/history.html
by Ron Miller
Why are there "alternative" schools? Our system of public schooling
was first organized in the 1830's to provide a common, culturally
unifying educational experience for all children, yet from the very
beginning, certain groups of educators, parents, and students
themselves have declined to participate in this system. Their reasons
are various, and the forms of schooling--and nonschooling--that they
have chosen instead are equally diverse. The history of alternative
education is a colorful story of social reformers and individualists,
religious believers and romantics; despite their differences,
however, they share an especially strong interest in young people's
social, moral, emotional and intellectual development, and, more
deliberately than most public school programs, they have practiced
educational approaches that aim primarily to nourish these qualities.
Historians of public education have described how, during the period
between 1837 (when Horace Mann became the first powerful leader of a
state education agency) and the early twentieth century (when new
scientific theories were applied to psychology, learning, and
organizational management), a particularly narrow model of schooling
became solidly established as the "one best system" of public
education. According to this model, the purpose of schooling was to
overcome cultural diversity and personal uniqueness in order to mold
a loyal citizenry and an effective workforce for the growing
industrial system. Education aimed primarily to discipline the
developing energies of young people for the sake of political and
social uniformity as well as the success of the emerging corporate
economy. In the early twentieth century, these goals were concisely
expressed by the term "social efficiency," which was often used by
educational leaders.
Many people are attracted to alternative schools and home education
because they feel that this agenda of "social efficiency" does not
allow for such values as individuality, creativity, democratic
community life and spiritual development. Indeed, Horace Mann's
efforts to centralize public schooling were opposed from the start by
religious leaders and other critics who argued that education is a
community, family, and personal endeavor, not a political program to
be mandated by the state. For example, many of the Transcendentalist
thinkers of the mid-nineteenth century-Emerson, Thoreau, Alcott,
Brownson, Ripley--argued against the rigidity of public schooling and
several of them started their own alternative schools. The Temple
School in Boston, run by Bronson Alcott between 1834 and 1838 (with
his daughter Louisa May as one of the students), is an outstanding
historical model of alternative education; Alcott rejected the
teaching methods of his time (rote memorization and recitation) and
encouraged Socratic dialogue, with a deeply moral and spiritual
emphasis.
The roots of many twentieth century alternative school movements go
back to three European philosopher/educators: Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, and Friedrich Froebel. In his 1762 book
Emile, Rousseau argued that education should follow the child's
natural growth rather than the demands of society, which, he claimed,
tend to thwart all that is organic, natural and spiritual. This
emphasis on the innate development of human nature became the primary
philosophical basis for many alternative movements in education. It
has influenced progressive educators as well as generations of
libertarian thinkers. In the early 1800's, the Swiss humanitarian
Pestalozzi opened schools for orphans, adopting Rousseau's
principles. His work inspired educators in Europe and America
(including Alcott). One of his disciples, Joseph Neef, emigrated to
the U.S. and founded child-centered schools in three states between
1809 and 1827. Froebel was another teacher at Pestalozzi's school,
and later became famous as the founder of the kindergarten concept;
it is not well known that Froebel envisioned all levels of schooling
as being nourishing "gardens" for children's spontaneous development.
This philosophical tradition strongly influenced Francis Parker, who,
with John Dewey, originated the progressive education movement late
in the nineteenth century. A public school superintendent, head of a
teacher education program, and popular speaker and author, Parker
believed that education should serve the needs of children and
conform to their styles of thinking and learning. Although Parker
himself (and many subsequent progressive educators) tried to reform
the "one best system" from within, his influence spread to many
alternative schools during the first two decades of this century,
such as those associated with progressive educators like Margaret
Naumberg, Helen Parkhurst, and Caroline Pratt, among many others.
At the same time, two European educational pioneers designed
alternative methods with roots going back to Rousseau, Pestalozzi and
Froebel. Maria Montessori was an Italian pediatrician/psychiatrist
who studied child development with a meticulous scientific eye as
well as a deep religious faith in the divine essence of the human
being. She opened her first "children's home" in 1907. Rudolf Steiner
was an Austrian philosopher/mystic who developed a spiritual science
called Anthroposophy that he applied to the fields of medicine,
agriculture, architecture, and the arts, as well as education. He
founded the first Waldorf school in 1919. Both of these methods have
evolved into important international movements for educational change.
It was during the 1960's that alternative education grew into a
widespread social movement. During this decade, of course,
countercultural themes that had always been marginal and virtually
invisible--racial justice, pacifism, feminism, and opposition to
corporate capitalism--exploded into public view. Mass demonstrations,
alternative lifestyles and publications, and the urban riots and
assassinations of that period led to a deep examination of modern
society and institutions. Educators and other writers--including Paul
Goodman, John Holt, Jonathan Kozol, Herbert Kohl, George Dennison,
James Herndon and Ivan Illich--launched passionate attacks against
the "one best system" and its agenda of social efficiency. The period
between 1967 and 1972, especially, was a time of crisis for public
education, when student demonstrations, teacher strikes, and a deep
questioning of traditional assumptions shook the system to its core.
In these few years alone, over 500 "free schools"--nonpublic schools
based on countercultural if not revolutionary ideas--were founded.
Open classrooms and magnet schools (public schools of choice) were
introduced. And the spirit of Rousseau, Pestalozzi and Froebel began
to seep into academic and professional circles, leading, by the end
of the 1970's, to approaches that came to be called "humanistic"
and "holistic" education.
The counterculture did not prevail; over the past twenty years,
traditional values have been strongly reasserted in politics and in
education. The 1983 report by President Reagan's Commission on
Excellence in Education, A Nation at Risk, was a powerful statement
of the traditional goals of American public schooling--social
efficiency and economic growth--and it led to a tidal wave of
political grandstanding, legislative mandates, and
frantic "restructuring" mainly intended to produce better disciplined
citizens and workers for a competitive global economy. George
Bush's "America 2000" agenda became Bill Clinton's "Goals 2000"
program--now enacted into law--which continued this top-down movement
to harness the young generation's energies to the needs of the
corporate economy. Those who worked for progressive, child-centered,
or humanistic education within the system during the heyday of the
counterculture have found little support for their vision in recent
years, and many have turned to alternative settings.
Within the public system there are now many alternative programs for
students "at risk" of dropping out because they are so completely
alienated by the impersonal routines of conventional schooling. And
there are still significant pockets of progressive educators and
related groups--such as those promoting whole language and
cooperative learning--who remain determined to infuse public
education with more democratic, humanistic purposes. But despite
these oases of student-centered learning, the educational climate
during the past decade has been affected by ever tighter state and
federal control over learning, leading to still further testing,
politically mandated "outcomes," and national standards. There is
some hope in the relatively new concept of "charter schools," which
allow parents and innovative educators to receive public funding with
less bureaucratic intervention, although it remains to be seen how
much freedom such schools will be allowed if national standards begin
to be enforced.
As government school systems become increasingly yoked to the
purposes of the corporate economy, it is likely that thousands more
families and educators will turn to the more democratic and person-
centered values represented by alternative schools and home
education. For the past century and half, alternative schools have
been isolated countercultural enclaves with little influence on
mainstream educational thinking and policy. But in
the "postindustrial" or "postmodern" era that appears to be emerging
now, the industrial-age model of "social efficiency" is possibly
starting to become obsolete.
Perhaps, as Ivan Illich envisioned in his 1970 book Deschooling
Society and James Moffett describes in his recent book The Universal
Schoolhouse, the idea of a public school system may have outlived its
usefulness. According to these and other authors, in a democratic,
information-rich society, learning should take place everywhere in
the community, and young people should have access to mentors who
nourish their diverse personal interests and styles of learning. We
have a long way to go before this sort of system is in place, but if
our society does in fact move in this direction, it may well be
alternative educators who show the way.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.5.484 / Virus Database: 269.13.0/980 - Release Date: 30/08/2007 6:05 PM
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
3d. Admin: ad hominem warning (Peter Staudenmaier)
Posted by: "Dan Dugan" dan dandugan.com dandugan_1999
Date: Fri Aug 31, 2007 7:00 pm ((PDT))
Peter Staudenmaier, you wrote:
)If Brad could somehow manage to actually open up a book by Rudolf Steiner,
)he might discover...this should be easy enough to determine
)even for folks like Brad.
Please direct your arguments to the topic being discussed, not the
personalities of your fellow subscribers.
-Dan Dugan, Moderator
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
3e. Re: Process/Growth of Mind in alternative education
Posted by: "Dan Dugan" dan dandugan.com dandugan_1999
Date: Fri Aug 31, 2007 7:02 pm ((PDT))
In the article posted by Brad Martin, Ron Miller wrote,
)George
)Bush's "America 2000" agenda became Bill Clinton's "Goals 2000"
)program--now enacted into law--which continued this top-down movement
)to harness the young generation's energies to the needs of the
)corporate economy.
Cheap anarchist rhetoric that discredits the writer more than the
government's attempts at education reform.
-Dan Dugan
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
3f. Admin: Re: [wc] Process/Growth of Mind in alternative education
Posted by: "Dan Dugan" dan dandugan.com dandugan_1999
Date: Fri Aug 31, 2007 7:13 pm ((PDT))
M Howell, when you posted the article from Salon, you included the
entire text of the Ron Miller article that Brad Martin posted. Please
delete any quoted text that isn't necessary for understanding your
post before sending. Extraneous text makes reading difficult for
digest subscribers, and clogs up the archives.
Thank you for your consideration.
-Dan Dugan, Moderator
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
(*) To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waldorf-critics/
(*) Your email settings:
Digest Email | Traditional
(*) To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waldorf-critics/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
(*) To change settings via email:
mailto:waldorf-critics-normal yahoogroups.com
mailto:waldorf-critics-fullfeatured yahoogroups.com
(*) To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
waldorf-critics-unsubscribe yahoogroups.com
(*) Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are 2 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Process/Growth of Mind in alternative education
From: Peter Staudenmaier
2. I have added you to my friends network today!
From: sexyyybvgirl
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Re: Process/Growth of Mind in alternative education
Posted by: "Peter Staudenmaier" pstaud hotmail.com pstauden
Date: Sat Sep 1, 2007 8:11 am ((PDT))
Trying carefully not to say anything about Mr. Howell's personality, I'd be
interested to know -- from him, from Brad, from any other would-be Waldorf
enthusiast -- why the Kozol profile struck them as relevant to Waldorf. My
two best guesses are: Howell thinks Kozol is part of the Great Jewish
Conspiracy out to destroy anthroposophy; or he thinks Kozol's work is
somehow in alignment with Waldorf education. Are Brad and Howell et al
trying to subvert Waldorf, or support it? Growing minds eagerly await an
explanation... Greetings to all,
Peter S.
)Teachers: Be subversive
_________________________________________________________________
Kick back and relax with hot games and cool activities at the Messenger
CafŽ. http://www.cafemessenger.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_SeptHMtagline1
Messages in this topic (7)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2. I have added you to my friends network today!
Posted by: "sexyyybvgirl" sexyyybvgirl yahoo.com sexyyybvgirl
Date: Sat Sep 1, 2007 5:33 pm ((PDT))
I created this cool friends network and added you to my friends network. Hit-up now:
http://sexylvuugirl.googlepages.com/girlfriends.htm
Messages in this topic (1)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
(*) To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waldorf-critics/
(*) Your email settings:
Digest Email | Traditional
(*) To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waldorf-critics/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
(*) To change settings via email:
mailto:waldorf-critics-normal yahoogroups.com
mailto:waldorf-critics-fullfeatured yahoogroups.com
(*) To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
waldorf-critics-unsubscribe yahoogroups.com
(*) Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are 8 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Franz Winkler
From: Roger Rawlings
1b. Re: Franz Winkler
From: Dan Dugan
1c. Re: Franz Winkler
From: Margaret Sachs
2.1. AW: [wc] Re: Pledge of Allegiance Statutes
From: Bruce Jackson
2.2. Re: Pledge of Allegiance Statutes
From: susan8133alaska
2.3. Re: Pledge of Allegiance Statutes
From: sean
2.4. Re: Pledge of Allegiance Statutes
From: ensemble451705
3. new web site on Waldorf church-state issue in Australia
From: Dan Dugan
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Re: Franz Winkler
Posted by: "Roger Rawlings" downfromfog yahoo.com downfromfog
Date: Sun Sep 2, 2007 7:18 am ((PDT))
Did I fail to explicitly state that Winkler was an (Anthroposophical) MD?
My memories of Winkler are far mistier than my memories of teachers and classmates.
Winkler projected a "soft" personality, not nearly as prickly as many of my teachers. One
result is that in person, in print, and in his practice, he was quite successful in concealing
(or taking the edge off of) his devotion to Steiner. In his practice, for instance, he never (to
my knowledge) employed the truly weird treatments related by Robert Smith-Hald and
Sharon Lombard in their essays at the PLANS Web site. Instead, he was big on mineral
supplements (my mother ordered many such from Waleda).
Similarly, Winkler's book, MAN, THE BRIDGE BETWEEN TWO WORLDS, advocates Steinerian
concepts in indirect, "reasonable" ways that disguise the origin or purpose of these
concepts. (It's been a long time since I read the book, and I don't wish to read it again, so
take my remarks with some salt. Note, though, that Winkler was doing in print what
Waldorf schools so often do in their classrooms: Secretly, deceptively pushing
Anthroposophy without fessing up to it.) There is a single reference to Steiner, late in the
book (pp.221-223). It is explicit about Winkler's admiration of Steiner, but it gives only a
hazy, disarmed sense of Steiner's doctrines. The book got good reviews in mainstream
newspapers. Here's Stanton Coblentz, Los Angeles Times, 1960: "Winkler points out things
science has tended to ignore: the power of ideas, the reality of man's inner world."
Anthroposophy served up soft.
In person, Winkler was mild-mannered. He listened more than he spoke, and he he held
himself very still, as if receding into the background.
Here's an example of the sorts of mental exercises Winkler prescribed for me: Choose a
common object, such as a pencil. Concentrate intently upon it. Understand its composition
and purpose, and the spirit (or Platonic archetype) that it embodies: Why was the pencil
(and the very first pencil, and the Idea of pencils) made? How was it made? Visualize every
step in the construction of the pencil: how it came into being: reaching back to the
germination and growth of the tree from which the pencil's wood was derived, etc., etc.
This is not a flagrantly Anthroposophic exercise. Many meditative disciplines would
include such exercises. But it is certainly consistent with Steiner's teaching on how to
develop "higher consciouness." (Look at HOW TO KNOW HIGHER WORLDS, Anthroposophic
Press, 1994: Try wrapping your mind around Steiner's explanations of how to develop of
12- and 16-petaled lotus flowers, etc.)
--Roger
Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: Franz Winkler
Posted by: "Dan Dugan" dan dandugan.com dandugan_1999
Date: Sun Sep 2, 2007 3:34 pm ((PDT))
Roger Rawlings wrote:
)Here's an example of the sorts of mental exercises Winkler
)prescribed for me: Choose a common object, such as a pencil.
)Concentrate intently upon it. Understand its composition and
)purpose, and the spirit (or Platonic archetype) that it embodies:
)Why was the pencil (and the very first pencil, and the Idea of
)pencils) made? How was it made? Visualize every step in the
)construction of the pencil: how it came into being: reaching back to
)the germination and growth of the tree from which the pencil's wood
)was derived, etc., etc. This is not a flagrantly Anthroposophic
)exercise. Many meditative disciplines would include such exercises.
Actually, I believe it is. I don't have an example at hand, but I
recall just this kind of meditation on an everyday object being
taught by Steiner.
-Dan Dugan
Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
1c. Re: Franz Winkler
Posted by: "Margaret Sachs" powerofjoy2004 yahoo.com powerofjoy2004
Date: Sun Sep 2, 2007 8:38 pm ((PDT))
--- Dan Dugan (dan dandugan.com) wrote:
) Roger Rawlings wrote:
)
) )Here's an example of the sorts of mental exercises
) Winkler
) )prescribed for me: Choose a common object, such as
) a pencil.
) )Concentrate intently upon it. Understand its
) composition and
) )purpose, and the spirit (or Platonic archetype)
) that it embodies:
) )Why was the pencil (and the very first pencil, and
) the Idea of
) )pencils) made? How was it made? Visualize every
) step in the
) )construction of the pencil: how it came into being:
) reaching back to
) )the germination and growth of the tree from which
) the pencil's wood
) )was derived, etc., etc. This is not a flagrantly
) Anthroposophic
) )exercise. Many meditative disciplines would include
) such exercises.
)
) Actually, I believe it is. I don't have an example
) at hand, but I
) recall just this kind of meditation on an everyday
) object being
) taught by Steiner.
)
) -Dan Dugan
I was once discussing meditation with an
Anthroposophist friend. I told her I had tried to
learn how to meditate on a number of occasions but had
not been able to (believing that the idea was to empty
one's mind). She told me how to meditate and her
instructions were the same as above except that
instead of a pencil she used a paper clip as an
example. She told me it was only a first step in the
process of learning to meditate. I tried it but chose
a tree instead of a paper clip. I spent about twenty
minutes with millions of tree-related thoughts
coursing through my mind and then stopped because the
whole exercise seemed completely pointless to me and
didn't seem to be conducive to achieving a meditative
state as I understood it.
Years later someone gave me a book called "The Power
of Now" by Eckhart Tolle. As I remember it, there was
a point in that book that he describes in a sentence
or two how to achieve that state where you've shed all
distractions and are conscious only of your core being
(or something of the sort). Within seconds of reading
that, I was able to meditate without the help of
pencils or paper clips or special sounds like "om."
Anyway, I would agree with Dan that this probably is
"a flagrantly Anthroposophic exercise."
Best,
Margaret
____________________________________________________________________________________
Be a better Heartthrob. Get better relationship answers from someone who knows. Yahoo! Answers - Check it out.
http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/?link=list&sid=396545433
Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2.1. AW: [wc] Re: Pledge of Allegiance Statutes
Posted by: "Bruce Jackson" bruceylists freenet.de bruceyj
Date: Sun Sep 2, 2007 9:48 am ((PDT))
I think you're getting a little paranoid.
Have you any idea how many children worldwide are today receiving lessons in
a waldorf school?
_____
Von: waldorf-critics yahoogroups.com
[mailto:waldorf-critics yahoogroups.com] Im Auftrag von susan8133alaska
Gesendet: Dienstag, 28. August 2007 11:39
An: waldorf-critics yahoogroups.com
Betreff: [wc] Re: Pledge of Allegiance Statutes
Davy,
Thanks for the website and all the information. The More I read, the
more scared I get.
Reading about the Eurythmy... James is doing a PAINTING project and
he was really excited about finishing it tomorrow. But... this stuff
isn't like a "regular art class" is it????... seems like there is
breathing rhythms and such and about WATERCOLORS?? Is everything he
is doing in that school tied to something "dark"????
After reading stuff in this new website, I'm thinking I DONT want to
talk to the priniciple at 9:00, but then not pick James up until
3:00... what might they "do to him" between the time I tell them I
want him out of there, and the time I pick him up???? Hmm, AM I
GETTING PARANOID HERE? Well, it seems like I'm "living a bad movie
about witchcraft, etc."
I had thought I would let him go to school tomorrow while I interview
with some new schools, let him finish that painting and get him out
of school at 3:00 and then tell him that he wasn't going back.
I'm going to have to pray about this and see how I feel in the
morning, it's VERY late, yikes, didn't realize it is going on 2:00
AM.. gotta get to bed and see what tomorrow brings.
Thanks for sharing Davy!
--- In waldorf-critics (mailto:waldorf-critics%40yahoogroups.com)
yahoogroups.com, "ensemble451705"
(davy.bd ...) wrote:
)
) --- In waldorf-critics (mailto:waldorf-critics%40yahoogroups.com)
yahoogroups.com, "susan8133alaska"
) (susan8133 ) wrote:
) )
) ) The first thing I noticed on the first day of school is NO
) AMERICAN
) ) FLAGS and NO PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE... Now, this is a PUBLIC
SCHOOL,
) so
) ) my question is... Aren't they required by law to OFFER the PLEDGE
) for
) ) all their students???
) )
) ) This is what I came up with for the federal laws. HOW CAN A
PUBLIC
) ) WALDORF GET AWAY WITH NOT HAVING THE PLEDGE EVERY MORNING???
) )
) Hello Susan,
) I'm very glad for yourself and James that you have found this list
) and that you have found the support, and probably the sourcing you
) needed. As with most other postings on your situation, your
question
) here is probably best dealt with by your fellow Americans, but even
) as a Brit, your question really stood out for me, as it touches on
) the thing that I found most crushing, ie cultural alienation, which
) I more often used to call the 'Germanising' of the residents at the
) special needs centre I was involved with.
) My best shot at describing (very briefly) the whys and wherefores
of
) this is at
) www.easeonline.org/Soul_Consciousness.htm
) Obviously, this has been written for Britain, but I'd hope that it
) gives others at least a starting point at figuring out the "why"
) part of your question; others will be far better placed to answer
) the "how" part.
) It might help. I hope that at least it doesn't hurt.
) Full respects
) Davy
)
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Messages in this topic (32)
________________________________________________________________________
2.2. Re: Pledge of Allegiance Statutes
Posted by: "susan8133alaska" susan8133 aol.com susan8133alaska
Date: Sun Sep 2, 2007 2:10 pm ((PDT))
Bruce,
I'm not in a mood for a debate. But what the heck does it matter how
many other kids are subjected to Waldorf Education. I only care about
MY child.
With YOUR idea of the day... my child could say "but mommm, do you know
how many kids are allowed to smoke, or drink, or have unprotected
sex??? Why can't I do what they do?"
Does that mean I'm supposed to say "oh, sure, that makes all the
difference in the world, go ahead honey, just cuz other people are
doing it, that makes it all okay for you to be subjected to things I
don't agree with."
Again, I'm not up for a debate right now. I just don't see what your
response has to do with being a parent, good, bad, paranoid, or
otherwise.
--- In waldorf-critics yahoogroups.com, "Bruce Jackson"
(bruceylists ...) wrote:
)
) I think you're getting a little paranoid.
)
)
)
) Have you any idea how many children worldwide are today receiving
lessons in
) a waldorf school?
)
Messages in this topic (32)
________________________________________________________________________
2.3. Re: Pledge of Allegiance Statutes
Posted by: "sean" seankenny gmail.com irvken
Date: Sun Sep 2, 2007 2:39 pm ((PDT))
On 02/09/07, susan8133alaska (susan8133 aol.com) wrote:
)
)
)
)
)
)
) Bruce,
)
) I'm not in a mood for a debate. But what the heck does it matter how
) many other kids are subjected to Waldorf Education. I only care about
) MY child.
Not in the mood for debate, then read an article?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/parents/story/0,,1486330,00.html
)
)
)
)
)
)
) With YOUR idea of the day... my child could say "but mommm, do you know
) how many kids are allowed to smoke, or drink, or have unprotected
) sex??? Why can't I do what they do?"
)
) Does that mean I'm supposed to say "oh, sure, that makes all the
) difference in the world, go ahead honey, just cuz other people are
) doing it, that makes it all okay for you to be subjected to things I
) don't agree with."
)
) Again, I'm not up for a debate right now. I just don't see what your
) response has to do with being a parent, good, bad, paranoid, or
) otherwise.
)
) --- In waldorf-critics yahoogroups.com, "Bruce Jackson"
) (bruceylists ...) wrote:
) )
) ) I think you're getting a little paranoid.
) )
) )
) )
) ) Have you any idea how many children worldwide are today receiving
) lessons in
) ) a waldorf school?
) )
)
)
Messages in this topic (32)
________________________________________________________________________
2.4. Re: Pledge of Allegiance Statutes
Posted by: "ensemble451705" davy.bd btinternet.com ensemble451705
Date: Sun Sep 2, 2007 11:58 pm ((PDT))
--- In waldorf-critics yahoogroups.com, sean (seankenny ...) wrote:
) Not in the mood for debate, then read an article?
) http://www.guardian.co.uk/parents/story/0,,1486330,00.html
)
)
Or, rather than read one more bubblegum piece of regurgitated
publicity based on a (probably) well orchestrated single day visit,
one might try a website based on lengthy experience.
www.waldorfeducation.me.uk
might do.
It's a terrific site for waldorf proponents: it provides lots of
victims to be blamed for not fitting in with the Waldorf ideal.
Davy
Messages in this topic (32)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3. new web site on Waldorf church-state issue in Australia
Posted by: "Dan Dugan" dan dandugan.com dandugan_1999
Date: Sun Sep 2, 2007 2:41 pm ((PDT))
A new web site has appeared in Australia:
http://www.peopleforstateeducation.org
excerpt:
)People for State Education (PFSE) is an national action and lobby
)group convened in May 2005, which supports access to high quality
)government education which is both free of cost and free of
)religious influence for all.
)
)Specialised programs a focus
)
)PFSE has many concerns about maintaining the integrity of the public
)school system, but the current focus is the introduction and
)operation of specialised curriculums into government schools.
)
)There are many specialised programs being offered in Australian
)public schools, including Montessori, Reggio Emilia and Steiner.
)
)Many of these schools are experiencing division, and as a result
)PFSE is conducting a campaign (see the Media Resources section)
)currently questioning the validity of these specialised programs.
-Dan Dugan
Messages in this topic (1)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
(*) To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waldorf-critics/
(*) Your email settings:
Digest Email | Traditional
(*) To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waldorf-critics/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
(*) To change settings via email:
mailto:waldorf-critics-normal yahoogroups.com
mailto:waldorf-critics-fullfeatured yahoogroups.com
(*) To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
waldorf-critics-unsubscribe yahoogroups.com
(*) Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are 7 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1.1. Re: Pledge of Allegiance Statutes
From: Roger Rawlings
2a. Re: Franz Winkler
From: Roger Rawlings
2b. Re: Franz Winkler
From: Roger Rawlings
2c. Re: Franz Winkler
From: Peter Staudenmaier
2d. Re: Franz Winkler
From: Roger Rawlings
3a. Re: Process/Growth of Mind in alternative education
From: M Howell
3b. Steiner: a polymath or a man with a finger in many pies?
From: Margaret Sachs
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1.1. Re: Pledge of Allegiance Statutes
Posted by: "Roger Rawlings" downfromfog yahoo.com downfromfog
Date: Mon Sep 3, 2007 6:39 am ((PDT))
Well said, Susan.
While there may be some Waldorfs that are more or less harmless÷and that obey the laws
÷the Waldorf school James was attending doesn't seem to be one of them. On both the
matter of the Pledge and the recital of a morning prayer, it was apparently operating
illegally÷which certainly was cause for alarm. Moreover, as a special-needs student,
James needs as much assistance and reinforcement as possible. Attending Waldorf would
merely have placed more obstacles in his path (as several of us suggested in some detail
in our postings).
All the best to you, your husband, and James. Whenever you have the time and inclination,
let us know how things are going.
--Roger
--- In waldorf-critics yahoogroups.com, "susan8133alaska" (susan8133 ...) wrote:
)
) Bruce,
)
) I'm not in a mood for a debate. But what the heck does it matter how
) many other kids are subjected to Waldorf Education. I only care about
) MY child.
)
) With YOUR idea of the day... my child could say "but mommm, do you know
) how many kids are allowed to smoke, or drink, or have unprotected
) sex??? Why can't I do what they do?"
)
) Does that mean I'm supposed to say "oh, sure, that makes all the
) difference in the world, go ahead honey, just cuz other people are
) doing it, that makes it all okay for you to be subjected to things I
) don't agree with."
)
) Again, I'm not up for a debate right now. I just don't see what your
) response has to do with being a parent, good, bad, paranoid, or
) otherwise.
)
) --- In waldorf-critics yahoogroups.com, "Bruce Jackson"
) (bruceylists ) wrote:
) )
) ) I think you're getting a little paranoid.
) )
) )
) )
) ) Have you any idea how many children worldwide are today receiving
) lessons in
) ) a waldorf school?
) )
)
Messages in this topic (33)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2a. Re: Franz Winkler
Posted by: "Roger Rawlings" downfromfog yahoo.com downfromfog
Date: Mon Sep 3, 2007 6:59 am ((PDT))
The exercise I described is certainly recognizable as consistent with Anthroposophical
teachings. My only additional point was that such exercises may also be found elsewhere.
The most important part of the exercise, I believe, was that Winkler steered me back to the
tree and then back to the seed. This is specifically what Steiner recommended: focusing on
life processes, growth, the germination of a seed, etc. (e.g., HOW TO KNOW HIGHER
WORLDS, p.56). He also taught that one should meditate on the processes of withering,
decline, and death. Steiner's stated goals were to direct meditation in such as way that the
student a) realizes there is no reality in the physical world, and b) s/he develops "organs
of clairvoyance."
Ye gods and little fishes...
--Roger
P.S. By the way÷this is hazy÷I'm pretty sure that what I described as one exercise was
actually a series of exercises, starting with a literal and real pencil, and ending with an
abstract, spiritualistic conception of the Idea of a seed growing into the Idea of a tree.
--- In waldorf-critics yahoogroups.com, Dan Dugan (dan ...) wrote:
)
) Roger Rawlings wrote:
)
) )Here's an example of the sorts of mental exercises Winkler
) )prescribed for me: Choose a common object, such as a pencil.
) )Concentrate intently upon it. Understand its composition and
) )purpose, and the spirit (or Platonic archetype) that it embodies:
) )Why was the pencil (and the very first pencil, and the Idea of
) )pencils) made? How was it made? Visualize every step in the
) )construction of the pencil: how it came into being: reaching back to
) )the germination and growth of the tree from which the pencil's wood
) )was derived, etc., etc. This is not a flagrantly Anthroposophic
) )exercise. Many meditative disciplines would include such exercises.
)
) Actually, I believe it is. I don't have an example at hand, but I
) recall just this kind of meditation on an everyday object being
) taught by Steiner.
)
) -Dan Dugan
)
Messages in this topic (8)
________________________________________________________________________
2b. Re: Franz Winkler
Posted by: "Roger Rawlings" downfromfog yahoo.com downfromfog
Date: Mon Sep 3, 2007 7:11 am ((PDT))
--- In waldorf-critics yahoogroups.com, Margaret Sachs (powerofjoy2004 ...) wrote:
I told her I had tried to
) learn how to meditate on a number of occasions but had
) not been able to (believing that the idea was to empty
) one's mind). (snip)
)
) Anyway, I would agree with Dan that this probably is
) "a flagrantly Anthroposophic exercise."
)
) Best,
) Margaret
Yes, as I understand it, the goal of most meditative disciplines is to still the mind÷or as
Steiner described it, to take conscious control of your own consciousness (my words, not
his: he spoke in terms of the soul subjugating the "organs of thinking, feeling, and
willing", thus disconnecting the individual from all things physical (and, I would add, all
things real)). See HOW TO KNOW HIGHER WORLDS, p.202.
I would not deny that Winkler's exercises smacked of Anthroposophy. This is probably
why, more or less unconsciously, I went through them only half-heartedly. I was already
developing doubts about Steiner and Waldorf, and I was taking my first tentative steps
away.
--Roger
Messages in this topic (8)
________________________________________________________________________
2c. Re: Franz Winkler
Posted by: "Peter Staudenmaier" pstaud hotmail.com pstauden
Date: Mon Sep 3, 2007 12:13 pm ((PDT))
Roger wrote:
)The exercise I described is certainly recognizable as consistent with
)Anthroposophical
)teachings. My only additional point was that such exercises may also be
)found elsewhere.
I think this is a good point. Some anthroposophical exercises are quite
similar to various practices associated with the more esoterically inclined
Pythagoreans, for example; indeed this may even have been one of Steiner's
sources. Another possibility could be the broader theosophical milieu in
German-speaking Europe around the turn of the century, the context within
which anthroposophy arose; it would be interesting to explore what sorts of
meditative exercises were common in those circles. In today's context, a lot
of what passes for specifically anthroposophical can be found in slightly
varying form in a range of other esoteric traditions and New Age currents.
These sorts of comparisons can be important when trying to figure out how to
locate anthroposophy within the spectrum of occult worldviews, just as it
can be important to figure out how Waldorf education relates to pedagogical
reform movements, historically and today. Based on the experience of this
list, at least, many Waldorf fans neglect to take this simple step, and they
consequently become convinced that critics of Waldorf are across the board
enemies of alternative education, or that critics of anthroposophy have
taken Steiner's works "out of context" -- we just got another one of those
claims today on the old topica list.
It would be nice to see such questions taken seriously by Waldorf proponents
and those who prefer to look at the sunny side of anthroposophy. If Brad,
Bruce, Sean, et al have something to say for themselves on the matter, I
think now would be a fine time to say it. Greetings to all,
Peter Staudenmaier
_________________________________________________________________
A place for moms to take a break!
http://www.reallivemoms.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM&loc=us
Messages in this topic (8)
________________________________________________________________________
2d. Re: Franz Winkler
Posted by: "Roger Rawlings" downfromfog yahoo.com downfromfog
Date: Mon Sep 3, 2007 2:23 pm ((PDT))
--- In waldorf-critics yahoogroups.com, "Peter Staudenmaier" (pstaud ...) wrote:
)
)
)
) Roger wrote:
)
)
) )The exercise I described is certainly recognizable as consistent with
) )Anthroposophical
) )teachings. My only additional point was that such exercises may also be
) )found elsewhere.
)
)
) I think this is a good point. Some anthroposophical exercises are quite
) similar to various practices associated with the more esoterically inclined
) Pythagoreans, for example; indeed this may even have been one of Steiner's
) sources.
Thanks, Peter.
I think this returns us to a point that I (and doubtless others) have made before: Steiner
was not much of an original thinker, and his claim to have discovered or verified all his
teachings through clairvoyant insight is (to say the least) problematic. In fact, most of his
teachings are "borrowed" from others, and usually the derivation is not hard to find.
(Easier for Peter than for the rest of us, thanks to his knowledge of history.) Steiner was
deeply and repetitively derivative÷which means that Anthroposophy is largely a
secondhand faith.
--Roger
Messages in this topic (8)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3a. Re: Process/Growth of Mind in alternative education
Posted by: "M Howell" mejhowell bigpond.com medgertonhowell2002
Date: Mon Sep 3, 2007 7:36 pm ((PDT))
I think I have discovered a new species. I
think i will name it Staudenliar specularius,
or perhaps
Staudenliar specularius ad nauseum.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Staudenmaier" (pstaud hotmail.com)
To: (waldorf-critics yahoogroups.com)
Sent: Sunday, September 02, 2007 1:09 AM
Subject: Re: [wc] Process/Growth of Mind in alternative education
)
)
) Trying carefully not to say anything about Mr. Howell's personality, I'd
) be
) interested to know -- from him, from Brad, from any other would-be Waldorf
) enthusiast -- why the Kozol profile struck them as relevant to Waldorf. My
) two best guesses are: Howell thinks Kozol is part of the Great Jewish
) Conspiracy out to destroy anthroposophy; or he thinks Kozol's work is
) somehow in alignment with Waldorf education. Are Brad and Howell et al
) trying to subvert Waldorf, or support it? Growing minds eagerly await an
) explanation... Greetings to all,
)
) Peter S.
)
)
))Teachers: Be subversive
)
) _________________________________________________________________
) Kick back and relax with hot games and cool activities at the Messenger
) CafŽ. http://www.cafemessenger.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_SeptHMtagline1
)
)
)
)
) Yahoo! Groups Links
)
)
)
)
)
) --
) No virus found in this incoming message.
) Checked by AVG Free Edition.
) Version: 7.5.484 / Virus Database: 269.13.1/982 - Release Date: 31/08/2007
) 5:21 PM
)
Messages in this topic (9)
________________________________________________________________________
3b. Steiner: a polymath or a man with a finger in many pies?
Posted by: "Margaret Sachs" powerofjoy2004 yahoo.com powerofjoy2004
Date: Mon Sep 3, 2007 8:35 pm ((PDT))
I've seen Steiner referred to as a polymath recently
and find myself questioning whether a person whose
knowledge of mythology is extensive but whose
knowledge of more concrete subjects is peppered with
nonsensical beliefs really fits the label. One surely
could not describe him as a polymath in areas such as
astronomy, geology, anthropology or physiology, given
his absurd statements relating to these fields. Is
there any evidence he was a polymath in other areas
such as foreign languages, ancient Greek and Latin,
literature, law or engineering?
Margaret
____________________________________________________________________________________
Yahoo! oneSearch: Finally, mobile search
that gives answers, not web links.
http://mobile.yahoo.com/mobileweb/onesearch?refer=1ONXIC
Messages in this topic (9)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
(*) To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waldorf-critics/
(*) Your email settings:
Digest Email | Traditional
(*) To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waldorf-critics/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
(*) To change settings via email:
mailto:waldorf-critics-normal yahoogroups.com
mailto:waldorf-critics-fullfeatured yahoogroups.com
(*) To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
waldorf-critics-unsubscribe yahoogroups.com
(*) Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
From ??? ??? Tue Sep 04 06:49:27 2007
Return-Path: (aaaox41b__hssee4znjeidk5_a_2v9texccv7a0bd4rowb boing.topica.com)
Delivered-To: 707-plans dandugan.com
Received: (qmail 19598 invoked from network); 4 Sep 2007 03:43:27 -0700
Received: from out010.topica-platinum-y.com (66.227.60.30)
by squid8.laughingsquid.net with SMTP; 4 Sep 2007 03:43:27 -0700
To: waldorf-critics topica.com
From: waldorf-critics topica.com
Subject: Digest for waldorf-critics topica.com, issue 2579
Date: Tue, 04 Sep 2007 03:43:27 -0700
Message-ID: (1227365968-1463747838-1188902607 boing.topica.com)
Errors-To: (aaaox41b__hssee4znjeidk5_a_2v9texccv7a0bd4rowb boing.topica.com)
X-Topica-Id: (1188902606.svc001.7299.2831648)
List-Help: (http://topica.com/lists/waldorf-critics topica.com/)
List-Unsubscribe: (mailto:waldorf-critics-unsubscribe topica.com)
MIME-Version: 1.0
-- Topica Digest --
By pentaclester gmail.com
Re:
By secretary waldorfcritics.org
------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2007 11:03:35 +0000
From: mervyn caplan (pentaclester gmail.com)
Subject:
A lot of the destructive criticism against Anthropsophy is unfortunately
pieces of Steiners ideas taken out of context.
Since a God Christ only embodies a suitable body once and later appears
in an an Angelic body it does not matter what race there is no physical
incarnation of Christ again.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2007 12:41:32 -0700
From: PLANS Secretary (secretary waldorfcritics.org)
Subject: Re:
Dear Mervyn, you posted to the waldorf-critics list hosted by Topica.
We've moved from there to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waldorf-critics/
-Dan Dugan
--
_________________________________________________________________________
People for Legal and Nonsectarian Schools http://www.waldorfcritics.org
------------------------------
==^================================================================
You can ask any question about Waldorf you like here, no matter how basic. New threads are always welcome.
End of waldorf-critics topica.com digest, issue 2579
There are 24 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Admin: ad hominem warning (M Howell)
From: Dan Dugan
2a. Re: Steiner: a polymath or a man with a finger in many pies?
From: Dan Dugan
2b. Re: Steiner: a polymath or a man with a finger in many pies?
From: Roger Rawlings
2c. Re: Steiner: a polymath or a man with a finger in many pies?
From: Roger Rawlings
2d. Re: Steiner: a polymath or a man with a finger in many pies?
From: Roger Rawlings
2e. Re: Steiner: a polymath or a man with a finger in many pies?
From: Peter Staudenmaier
2f. Re: Steiner: a polymath or a man with a finger in many pies?
From: Dan Dugan
2g. Re: Steiner: a polymath or a man with a finger in many pies?
From: winters_diana
2h. Re: Steiner: a polymath or a man with a finger in many pies?
From: Margaret Sachs
3a. Re: Process/Growth of Mind in alternative education
From: Peter Staudenmaier
3b. Re: Process/Growth of Mind in alternative education
From: Walden
3c. Re: Process/Growth of Mind in alternative education
From: winters_diana
3d. Re: Process/Growth of Mind in alternative education
From: winters_diana
3e. Re: Process/Growth of Mind in alternative education
From: winters_diana
3f. Anthroposophical preoccupations
From: winters_diana
3g. Re: Anthroposophical preoccupations
From: winters_diana
3h. Re: Process/Growth of Mind in alternative education
From: Walden
4. UK group and a new website
From: chaseukinfo
5.1. Re: Less than one week... we are DONE with PUBLIC WALDORF!
From: winters_diana
6a. Re: Alexis Carrel
From: winters_diana
6b. Re: Alexis Carrel
From: winters_diana
7.1. Re: Pledge of Allegiance Statutes
From: winters_diana
8a. 7 days out of Waldorf and First day into NEW SCHOOL
From: susan8133alaska
8b. Re: 7 days out of Waldorf and First day into NEW SCHOOL
From: Margaret Sachs
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Admin: ad hominem warning (M Howell)
Posted by: "Dan Dugan" dan dandugan.com dandugan_1999
Date: Tue Sep 4, 2007 7:06 am ((PDT))
9/4/07, M Howell wrote:
)I think I have discovered a new species. I
)think i will name it Staudenliar specularius,
)or perhaps
)Staudenliar specularius ad nauseum.
Limit your postings to discussion of the topic. Making a sophomoric
jab at your fellow subscriber was neither helpful nor permissible.
This is your second ad hominem warning, and you were recently
suspended for off-topic posting. Please pay attention to the simple
rules of this list.
-Dan Dugan, Moderator
Messages in this topic (26)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2a. Re: Steiner: a polymath or a man with a finger in many pies?
Posted by: "Dan Dugan" dan dandugan.com dandugan_1999
Date: Tue Sep 4, 2007 7:08 am ((PDT))
Margaret Sachs wrote:
)I've seen Steiner referred to as a polymath recently
)and find myself questioning whether a person whose
)knowledge of mythology is extensive but whose
)knowledge of more concrete subjects is peppered with
)nonsensical beliefs really fits the label. One surely
)could not describe him as a polymath in areas such as
)astronomy, geology, anthropology or physiology, given
)his absurd statements relating to these fields. Is
)there any evidence he was a polymath in other areas
)such as foreign languages, ancient Greek and Latin,
)literature, law or engineering?
Pretentious poseur is a better description. He couldn't make it in
the real world, so he performed for a cult of devotees who didn't
realize that he was faking it.
-Dan Dugan
Messages in this topic (26)
________________________________________________________________________
2b. Re: Steiner: a polymath or a man with a finger in many pies?
Posted by: "Roger Rawlings" downfromfog yahoo.com downfromfog
Date: Tue Sep 4, 2007 7:42 am ((PDT))
--- In waldorf-critics yahoogroups.com, Margaret Sachs (powerofjoy2004 ...) wrote:
)
) I've seen Steiner referred to as a polymath recently
) and find myself questioning whether a person whose
) knowledge of mythology is extensive but whose
) knowledge of more concrete subjects is peppered with
) nonsensical beliefs really fits the label. One surely
) could not describe him as a polymath in areas such as
) astronomy, geology, anthropology or physiology, given
) his absurd statements relating to these fields. Is
) there any evidence he was a polymath in other areas
) such as foreign languages, ancient Greek and Latin,
) literature, law or engineering?
)
) Margaret
)
Point well taken. Steiner did know a lot, but mostly what he knew was derivative esoteric
hogwash. His main source (Peter? correct me?) seems to have been Madame Blavatsky. She
was far more nearly a genius÷and perhaps madder÷than Steiner. She, in THE SECRET
DOCTRINE (an almost completely unreadable book, making Steiner's stuff seem crystal-
clear), found a way to weave together disparate, even conflicting strands of religious belief
from around the world and synthesize them in a single, presposterous system: Theosophy.
Of course, she was aided by other Theosophical thinkers. (Peter? Help?) Steiner took her
work, slowly changed some of the terminology, and added a few wrinkles of his own, and
presto: Anthropopsophy!
Anthroposophists sometimes argue that Steiner's work does not seem original because it
is true÷i.e., all the previous religious traditions hold truths, and Steiner's teachings repeat
(and amplify) those truths. This case would be more compelling if Steiner had not so
clearly "borrowed" heavily from Blavatsky, and if Blavatsky had not been widely condemned
as a fraud in her lifetime (e.g., by the prestigious London Society for Psychical Research).
Moreover, religious traditions around the world actually contain significant differences:
Their conceptions of God (or gods, or divine spirits, or the lack thereof) are often not, in
fact, reconcilable. The doctrine of reincarnation is not, in fact, reconcilable with the belief
that after one's first and only life one' soul is bound for heaven or hell (or purgatory, or
some of postulated destination). Etc. Blavatsky's work makes fully as little sense as does
Steiner's.
Lastly, as you say, Margaret, Steiner made so many preposterous, easily refuted
statements in so many areas that his status as an authority on anything is extremely
dubious.
--Roger
Messages in this topic (26)
________________________________________________________________________
2c. Re: Steiner: a polymath or a man with a finger in many pies?
Posted by: "Roger Rawlings" downfromfog yahoo.com downfromfog
Date: Tue Sep 4, 2007 7:45 am ((PDT))
--- In waldorf-critics yahoogroups.com, Dan Dugan (dan ...) wrote:
) Pretentious poseur is a better description. He (snip) performed for a cult of devotees who
didn't realize that he was faking it.
)
Hi, Dan. I wish I had your gift for brevity. Right on.
--Roger
Messages in this topic (26)
________________________________________________________________________
2d. Re: Steiner: a polymath or a man with a finger in many pies?
Posted by: "Roger Rawlings" downfromfog yahoo.com downfromfog
Date: Tue Sep 4, 2007 9:46 am ((PDT))
(Post-tractor addendum):
Steiner's rationale for breaking with Theosophy was that in his version of Theosophy he
placed greater emphasis on Christ Jesus. For his doctrines about Christ Jesus, he "borrowed"
heavily from Rosicrucianism and, broadly speaking, the gnostic Christian tradition. (Peter?)
As for Steiner being a polymath: I agree with Margaret that by branching out so widely,
Steiner simply gave himsefl many more fields in which to be wrong or incompetent. I haven't
read his work on beekeeping÷does it make better sense than his writings on agriculture in
general? The one area in which I'm tenatively inclined to give Steiner credit is architecture.
The two Goethana were/are impressive structures. Does anyone know if he had the
"assistance" of professional architects or engineers? If he didn't, then perhaps architecture
was his true calling÷and what a shame that he didn't confine himself to it.
--Roger
Messages in this topic (26)
________________________________________________________________________
2e. Re: Steiner: a polymath or a man with a finger in many pies?
Posted by: "Peter Staudenmaier" pstaud hotmail.com pstauden
Date: Tue Sep 4, 2007 11:54 am ((PDT))
I think Dan is right about Steiner performing for his followers, and about
his followers' credulousness, though there's an important contextual issue
worth keeping in mind: lots of people in early 20th century Europe,
especially relatively well educated people (which is the general demographic
from which esoteric and occult groups drew most of their adherents), were
looking for a way to get around the increasing professionalization of
knowledge and the concomitant specialization of knowledge. As scientific and
scholarly disciplines became more established, more academic, and more
exclusive, the notion of asserting various kinds of counter-knowledge took
on a strong appeal, and esoteric worldviews capitalized on this cultural
dynamic.
Steiner was somewhat unusual in the range of practical fields he influenced
-- I agree with Roger that Blavatsky makes a good comparison as far as more
conceptual matters go, but Steiner took the extra step of putting many of
these ideas into practice with concrete guidelines about how to do
everything from agriculture to architecture to economics. I do think it's a
good idea to distinguish between teachings that turn out to be wrong and
teachings that were nonsensical to begin with; these two things call for
different kinds of criticism, in my view. It can also be instructive to look
at which practical expressions of anthroposophy survived and spread, and
which ones fell flat; much of 'social threefolding', for example, belongs to
the latter category.
Roger also mentioned Steiner's theosophical influences, a very interesting
topic in its own right. I've recommended Helmut Zander's new book several
times before, a huge two volume history of anthroposophy in Germany just
published a couple months ago; one of its finest features is a detailed
effort to trace Steiner's sources, and the results are revealing: lots of
borrowings from and reworkings of other theosophical and esoteric
traditions, but also lots of attention to the popular science of the day.
Steiner's interests were genuinely diverse, even though his background
knowledge in a number of cases was spotty.
One reason anthroposophists seem convinced of Steiner's unique stature in
this regard is the unwillingness to engage in basic historical comparison, a
factor I mentioned recently. For any anthroposophically inclined listmates
who would like to break out of that self-imposed lack of perspective, there
are many helpful sources to consult; I'll list a few in English and a few in
German:
Kocku von Stuckrad, Western Esotericism: A Brief History of Secret Knowledge
(London 2005)
James Webb, The Occult Establishment (LaSalle 1976)
Corinna Treitel, A Science for the Soul: Occultism and the Genesis of the
German Modern (Baltimore 2004)
Wouter Hanegraaff, New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the
Mirror of Secular Thought (Leiden 1996)
Olav Hammer, Claiming Knowledge: Strategies of Epistemology from Theosophy
to the New Age (Leiden 2001)
Andreas Daum, Wissenschaftspopularisierung im 19. Jahrhundert: BŸrgerliche
Kultur, naturwissenschaftliche Bildung und die deutsche …ffentlichkeit,
1848-1914 (Munich 1998)
Ulrich Linse, BarfŸssige Propheten: Erlšser der zwanziger Jahre (Berlin
1983)
Ulrich Linse, Geisterseher und Wunderwirker: Heilssuche im
Industriezeitalter (Frankfurt 1996)
Greetings,
Peter S.
_________________________________________________________________
Gear up for Halo¨ 3 with free downloads and an exclusive offer.
http://gethalo3gear.com?ocid=SeptemberWLHalo3_MSNHMTxt_1
Messages in this topic (26)
________________________________________________________________________
2f. Re: Steiner: a polymath or a man with a finger in many pies?
Posted by: "Dan Dugan" dan dandugan.com dandugan_1999
Date: Tue Sep 4, 2007 6:44 pm ((PDT))
Roger Rawlings, you wrote,
)The one area in which I'm tenatively inclined to
)give Steiner credit is architecture. The two
)Goethana were/are impressive structures. Does
)anyone know if he had the "assistance" of
)professional architects or engineers? If he
)didn't, then perhaps architecture was his true
)calling÷and what a shame that he didn't confine
)himself to it.
I like Anthroposophical architecture, also--both
Steiner's and the school that follows him. But
all Steiner did was make a model. Others did the
real craft and professional work of
architecture--drawing plans, writing
specifications, etc. Ideas are cheap.
-Dan Dugan
Messages in this topic (26)
________________________________________________________________________
2g. Re: Steiner: a polymath or a man with a finger in many pies?
Posted by: "winters_diana" diana.winters verizon.net winters_diana
Date: Tue Sep 4, 2007 7:01 pm ((PDT))
) )The one area in which I'm tenatively inclined to
) )give Steiner credit is architecture. The two
) )Goethana were/are impressive structures. Does
) )anyone know if he had the "assistance" of
) )professional architects or engineers? If he
) )didn't, then perhaps architecture was his true
) )calling÷and what a shame that he didn't confine
) )himself to it.
Dan:
) I like Anthroposophical architecture, also--both
) Steiner's and the school that follows him.
Oh, gosh. Funny how differently we see things!! I find both
Goetheanums to be eyesores. The second one is not as hard to look at
than the first one - the first one, to me, is just a monstrosity, a
blight on the landscape. It's the most sinister looking edifice I
have ever seen (the Christian Science "Mother Church" in Boston, I
have to admit, rivals it). You could not pay me enough money to set
foot inside the Goetheanum.
As to his architectural vision overall - Roger was saying might this
be one area where Steiner actually contributed something - I have to
throw in here that I happen to have a friend who works for a very
prestigious architecture firm, known worldwide, actually she kind of
runs it, and if you ask her about Rudolf Steiner's contribution to
architecture, she rolls her eyes and says, "Rudolf Steiner didn't
make a contribution to architecture." He is not exactly somebody you
study in architecture school (and she went to the University of
Pennsylvania architecture school).
I am not just sour grapes here now - there *are* anthroposophical
things that I do like, as I've said I really do recommend their
watercolor painting method as a meditative exercises, I found it
very beneficial, and I'm still an admirer of Waldorf-style puppet
plays, I think they're a unique and lovely art form (and I was sort
of embarrassed to admit this to other critics who replied along the
lines of, "My god, they're for idiots," well I happen to like them
anyway!)
Diana
Messages in this topic (26)
________________________________________________________________________
2h. Re: Steiner: a polymath or a man with a finger in many pies?
Posted by: "Margaret Sachs" powerofjoy2004 yahoo.com powerofjoy2004
Date: Tue Sep 4, 2007 8:50 pm ((PDT))
--- winters_diana (diana.winters verizon.net) wrote:
) ) )The one area in which I'm tenatively inclined to
) ) )give Steiner credit is architecture. The two
) ) )Goethana were/are impressive structures. Does
) ) )anyone know if he had the "assistance" of
) ) )professional architects or engineers? If he
) ) )didn't, then perhaps architecture was his true
) ) )calling÷and what a shame that he didn't confine
) ) )himself to it.
)
) Dan:
)
) ) I like Anthroposophical architecture, also--both
) ) Steiner's and the school that follows him.
)
) Oh, gosh. Funny how differently we see things!! I
) find both
) Goetheanums to be eyesores.
I'm with you on this, Diana. I think the first
Goetheanum looks like something out of a 50's style
horror film with roofs that resemble Nazi helmets.
The second is a monstrosity that looks like it was
built to house a large population of the criminally
insane. But that's just my opinion.
Margaret
____________________________________________________________________________________
Looking for a deal? Find great prices on flights and hotels with Yahoo! FareChase.
http://farechase.yahoo.com/
Messages in this topic (26)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3a. Re: Process/Growth of Mind in alternative education
Posted by: "Peter Staudenmaier" pstaud hotmail.com pstauden
Date: Tue Sep 4, 2007 11:40 am ((PDT))
Although it is probably a lost cause, I'd be very interested to know what it
is that Mr. Howell thinks I was lying about. Like Brad Martin, Howell posted
a lengthy piece written by somebody else, with no explanation of what he
thought it meant or why he considered it relevant to Waldorf or
anthroposophy. This wasn't a one-time event; Howell, Brad, and other
apparent defenders of anthroposophy seem to have made a practice out of it.
Since they are for whatever reason unwlling to express their own thoughts on
the matter, this practice leaves the rest of us to speculate on what Howell
et al might be trying to say.
Howell's previous post, like others before it, did not mention Steiner,
Waldorf, or anthroposophy in any way. I thus offered two possible
hypotheses: 1) that Howell thought Kozol was Jewish and a part of the
conspiracy against anthroposophy, or 2) that Howell thought Kozol's work was
somehow consonant with Waldorf (a notion that is difficult to reconcile with
the content of the Kozol interview, but perhaps Howell didn't bother to read
it before posting it). I would be happy to entertain alternative
interpretations, though Howell does not seem to have any to offer at the
moment.
Whatever the secret may be behind this particular exchange, the broader
question remains: If Howell, Brad, and their companions see themselves as
promoting Waldorf education, why do the materials they post frequently
detract from, rather than contribute to, this goal? Have they now changed
their minds and become opponents of Waldorf (or, in Brad's logic, of
alternative education as such)? Or do they, on the contrary, have some other
conclusion in mind, one that they believe is somehow supported by the texts
they have invoked? If so, why are they so remarkably reluctant to state it
outright? Once again, growing minds eagerly await an explanation,
Peter S.
)From: "M Howell" (mejhowell bigpond.com)
)Reply-To: waldorf-critics yahoogroups.com
)To: (waldorf-critics yahoogroups.com)
)Subject: Re: [wc] Process/Growth of Mind in alternative education
)Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2007 12:36:39 +1000
)
)I think I have discovered a new species. I
)think i will name it Staudenliar specularius,
)or perhaps
)Staudenliar specularius ad nauseum.
_________________________________________________________________
Share your special parenting moments!
http://www.reallivemoms.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM&loc=us
Messages in this topic (26)
________________________________________________________________________
3b. Re: Process/Growth of Mind in alternative education
Posted by: "Walden" awaldenpond shaw.ca awaldenpond
Date: Tue Sep 4, 2007 4:52 pm ((PDT))
Peter Staudenmaier wrote:
)Although it is probably a lost cause, I'd be very interested to know what it
)is that Mr. Howell thinks I was lying about. Like Brad Martin, Howell posted
)a lengthy piece written by somebody else, with no explanation of what he
)thought it meant or why he considered it relevant to Waldorf or
)anthroposophy. This wasn't a one-time event; Howell, Brad, and other
)apparent defenders of anthroposophy seem to have made a practice out of it.
)Since they are for whatever reason unwlling to express their own thoughts on
)the matter, this practice leaves the rest of us to speculate on what Howell
)et al might be trying to say.
The lack of anything meaningful is not only odd (after all, this is a discussion list), it would seem counterproductive assuming these people are, in fact, anthroposophically inclined. It's like the old, "Nah Nah Nah Boo Boo" comeback at the playground.
-Walden
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Messages in this topic (26)
________________________________________________________________________
3c. Re: Process/Growth of Mind in alternative education
Posted by: "winters_diana" diana.winters verizon.net winters_diana
Date: Tue Sep 4, 2007 7:21 pm ((PDT))
Peter:
) Brad's message begins with the following sentence:
)
)
) )The roots of many twentieth century alternative school movements go
) )back to three European philosopher/educators: Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
) )Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, and Friedrich Froebel.
and then Peter tries to deduce meaning from Brad's having posted it. I
wouldn't bother. Its meaning is the same as everything Brad posts, and
it is always mindless (ironically, given his infatuation with notions
like "expanding the mind"). I don't hesitate to say I know its
meaning. Brad posts anything and everything that strikes him
as "alternative" in order to show that other people like alternative
things too, not just Waldorf people, and thus (to him, this appears to
follow) anyone who has any problem with Waldorf just doesn't like
anything alternative. It really is this simple, it really is what he
means to say, and it's really true there isn't any point attempting to
discuss the content of what he posts with him, he isn't interested,
and honestly often doesn't know what was the content of what he posted.
Diana
Messages in this topic (26)
________________________________________________________________________
3d. Re: Process/Growth of Mind in alternative education
Posted by: "winters_diana" diana.winters verizon.net winters_diana
Date: Tue Sep 4, 2007 7:39 pm ((PDT))
Drat, I just tried to reply here too and lost it. Trying again.
Where anything to do with what Kozol believes or proposes for
education is concerned, you will have better luck discussing this
with a rock than with Michael Howell. There is no possibility of a
coherent reply, not going to happen. I will try to translate for
list members who have not had the pleasant experience (sarcasm) of
conversing with this individual. He means the same thing Brad means:
Mainstream bad, alternative good, so what's your problem if you
don't like Waldorf?
It is tragically ironic to see some of this held up as if it
supports Waldorf when it recommends things Waldorf teachers will do
when hell, excuse me kamaloca freezes over, like bringing into the
classroom the "literary treasures" from their own childhoods (we've
heard Waldorf teachers here claim even Dr. Seuss is "inappropriate").
And schools as a "front line for democracy"?! Hello? This is not a
Waldorf goal, no way, no how. (Walden???)
Ask schools to "nourish diverse personal interests and styles of
learning"? I do not think so, not in a Waldorf school, to quote
Peter, Heavens, not that . . .
--- In waldorf-critics yahoogroups.com, "M Howell" (mejhowell ...)
wrote:
)
) http://www.salon.com/books/int/2007/08/30/kozol/print.html
) Salon.com
) August 30, 2007
)
) Teachers: Be subversive
)
) Jonathan Kozol, author of "Letters to a Young Teacher,"
) talks with Salon about why No Child Left Behind
) squelches learning and reading Rilke's sonnets to first
) graders.
)
) By Matthew Fishbane
)
) School days, writes Jonathan Kozol, should be full of
) "aesthetic merriment." But instead, too many of
) America's 93,000 public schools, particularly those in
) the inner cities, are what the poet Gwendolyn Brooks
) once called "uglifying," brimming with demoralizing
) indignities. Those indignities -- and also the acts of
) "stalwart celebration" that surface in classrooms
) across the country -- are the topic of Kozol's latest
) book, "Letters to a Young Teacher."
)
) Kozol, who will turn 71 this year, has written about
) race and class in the classroom before, most recently
) in 2005's "The Shame of the Nation" -- and in his
) latest work, an undercurrent of anger still simmers.
) But rather than descend into polemic, Kozol returns in
) "Letters" to his teaching roots, using a correspondence
) with a teacher he calls Francesca as a chance to pay
) tribute to the men and women who devote their lives to
) children every day.
)
) Francesca herself is "semi-fictionalized," a stand-in
) for the young educators -- almost all women -- who have
) been writing in remarkable volume to Kozol over the
) years. Still, Kozol insists that Francesca "is a very
) real person," "marvelously well-educated" and certified
) as a teacher. Written for an audience that is just
) becoming politically engaged, their exchange gives
) Kozol a forum in which to address No Child Left Behind,
) high-stakes testing, vouchers and other privatizing
) forces in public schools -- while at the same time
) leaving ample room to praise and celebrate the
) inspiring, human qualities he encounters in teachers,
) "empathetic principals" and, of course, kids.
)
) From page to page, the focus of Kozol's "Letters"
) shuttles from the mundane to the profound -- from loose
) teeth to the democratic aims of education -- in a
) thoughtful first-person that echoes another "buoyant
) spirit" of New England: Henry David Thoreau, who wrote
) in "Civil Disobedience," "as for supporting schools, I
) am doing my part to educate my fellow countrymen now."
) And in fact, Kozol's goals -- in calling for "a
) sweeping, intellectually sophisticated political
) upheaval" -- are no less lofty.
)
) Salon spoke to Kozol from his home in Byfield, Mass.,
) about the fun of first graders, the trouble with
) "utilitarian" teaching, and why No Child Left Behind is
) "the worst education legislation" in 40 years.
)
) Unlike some of your previous books, "Letters" strikes
) me as being more about teachers than students.
)
) Yes, that's true, although the students -- especially
) because they're young and so delightfully impertinent
) -- force their way into the story repeatedly. Like most
) teachers, Francesca talks about the children all the
) time.
)
) But it's true, the main purpose of the book is to
) describe what it's like to be a young teacher just
) beginning in an inner-city school at a time when there
) are unprecedented pressures, in part because of No
) Child Left Behind. It records a year of correspondence
) and visits with an irreverent young woman who also
) happens to be an excellent teacher. I think of the book
) as an invitation to a beautiful profession.
)
) Can you really call it an "invitation" when a huge part
) of your work is describing the many challenges teachers
) face in urban schools?
)
) Well, teachers have been profoundly demoralized in
) recent years and are often treated with contempt by
) politicians. There's a great deal of reckless rhetoric
) in Washington about the mediocrity of the teaching
) profession -- and I don't find that to be true at all.
) We are attracting better teachers and better-educated
) teachers today than at any time since I started out in
) 1964.
)
) I emphasize teachers because they are largely left out
) of the debate. None of the bombastic reports that come
) from Washington and think tanks telling us what needs
) to be "fixed" -- I hate such a mechanistic word, as if
) our schools were automobile engines -- ever asks the
) opinions of teachers. By far the most important factor
) in the success or failure of any school, far more
) important than tests or standards or business-model
) methods of accountability, is simply attracting the
) best-educated, most exciting young people into urban
) schools and keeping them there.
)
) In your letters, you spend a lot of time reassuring
) Francesca that it's OK to follow her instincts, or even
) encouraging her to be subversive, to disregard school
) policies if they don't make sense to her.
)
) I would say pleasantly subversive. In part that is
) Francesca's character anyway -- but I do recommend an
) attitude of irreverence on the part of teachers who are
) having tests and standards shoved down their throats
) from Washington. We try so hard to recruit exciting
) teachers into these schools, but nearly 50 percent of
) them quit within three years. In order to survive, they
) need to keep their individuality, their personalities,
) intact, and they need to fight to defend a sense of
) joyfulness that brought them to this profession in the
) first place.
)
) In most suburban schools, teachers know their kids are
) going to pass the required tests anyway -- so No Child
) Left Behind is an irritant in a good school system, but
) it doesn't distort the curriculum. It doesn't transform
) the nature of the school day. But in inner-city
) schools, testing anxiety not only consumes about a
) third of the year, but it also requires every minute of
) the school day in many of these inner-city schools to
) be directed to a specifically stated test-related
) skill. Very little art is allowed into these
) classrooms. Little social studies, really none of the
) humanities.
)
) In some embattled school systems these high-stakes
) tests start in first grade, or even kindergarten, in
) order to get the kids used to the protocol of test
) taking -- yet a vast majority of low-income kids have
) no preschool before they enter kindergarten. According
) to Marian Wright Edelman of the Children's Defense
) Fund, less than 50 percent of eligible children are
) provided with Head Start nowadays, and it's even worse
) in the poorest inner-city districts. Meanwhile, the
) children of my affluent Harvard classmates, or their
) grandchildren, typically have three years of
) developmental pre-K education. Then a few years later,
) they all have to take the same exam -- presuming the
) affluent kids go to public schools -- and so some are
) being tested on three or four years of education and
) some on twice as many years.
)
) Is that what you said recently when you went to speak
) to the Democrats on the Senate education committee?
)
) Yes. I think the tests in their present form are
) useless, because although President Bush promoted them
) by saying, "All we want to do is help these teachers
) see where their students need more help," the results
) typically don't come back before the end of June. What
) is the teacher supposed to do when she finally sees the
) test scores in the middle of the summer, send a
) postcard to little Shaniqua, saying, you know, "If I
) knew last winter what I know now, I would have put more
) emphasis on the those skills"?
)
) I recommended to the Democrats that they replace these
) tests with diagnostic tests, which are given
) individually by the teacher to her students. They are
) anxiety-free and you don't have to wait six months for
) McGraw-Hill or Harcourt to mis-score them, as they
) often do. The teacher gets results immediately. And
) it's not time stolen from education because she
) actually learns while she's giving this test.
)
) After the Supreme Court decision last June on
) segregation in Seattle's school districts, you wrote a
) critical Op-Ed in the New York Times about a transfer
) provision in No Child Left Behind that says that if a
) student is in a perennially failing school, that child
) must be permitted to transfer to a high-performing
) school. Can you explain your argument?
)
) The idea of the provision is that a child's parents
) should be able to transfer the child to a successful
) school in their district if the child's school has
) proven to be a hopeless failure. The trouble is, there
) aren't enough schools in overwhelmingly poor and
) minority inner-city districts to which a child can
) transfer. So less than 3 percent of eligible kids have
) transferred during the years since No Child Left Behind
) came into effect.
)
) I proposed that the transfer provision be amended not
) only to permit but to require states to make cross-
) district transfers possible -- so that a student in the
) South Bronx could be transferred to Bronxville, which
) is, I have tested in my car, only about a 12-minute
) drive. It would be a very simple amendment to add and
) it would drive a mighty blow against the deepening re-
) segregation of our urban schools, without making any
) reference to race. Justice Kennedy, in his partial
) concurrence, pointed out that strategies like these,
) which are race-neutral, would certainly be
) constitutional.
)
) How would those changes help to retain the wonderful
) young teachers you write about?
)
) First of all, it would immediately relieve that sense
) that there's always a sword above their heads, and that
) sword is empirically measurable testing. It would
) relieve the sense that every minute of the day has to
) be allocated to a predesignated skill. It would free
) them from the absurdity of posting numbers and the
) language of standards on their blackboards, which are
) of absolutely no benefit to a child. As Francesca once
) pointed out to me, no child's going to come back 10
) years later and say, "I'm so grateful to you for
) teaching me proficiency 56b."
)
) It would free the teachers from all of that, and it
) would allow these young teachers, most of whom have
) majored in liberal arts, and who love literature and
) poetry, to flood the classroom with all those treasures
) that they themselves enjoyed when they were children,
) most of them in very good suburban school districts.
)
) You use a lot of military language like "combat,"
) "assaults" and "capitulation" and return again and
) again to the idea that the administrative brass doesn't
) know what the grunts are living through. Are our
) schools really war zones?
)
) Yes, they are. You rightly called teachers "grunts," in
) that they are the ones who are doing the actual work.
) In the inner-city schools these classrooms are not
) simply the front lines of education: They're the front
) lines of democracy. No matter what happens in a child's
) home, no matter what other social and economic factors
) may impede a child, there's no question in my mind that
) a first-rate school can transform almost everything. So
) long as the teacher is energized and highly skilled and
) her personal sense of exhilaration in the company of
) children is not decapitated by a Dickensian agenda.
)
) I've received at least 30,000 letters, calls and e-
) mails or written notes handed to me from young teachers
) in the past two years alone: These teachers by and
) large are very well-educated and they are highly
) idealistic. And they know something that the testing
) and standards experts don't seem to know: namely, that
) the main reason for learning to read is for the
) pleasure it brings us, not for the utilitarian payoff
) of being able to read your orders.
)
) So you take issue with the argument that children need
) to be prepared for the realities of the marketplace.
) But isn't that what they will face?
)
) Yes, children do have to be prepared for the economic
) world -- but the invasion of the public schools by
) mercantile values has deeply demoralized teachers. I've
) been in classrooms where the teacher has to write a so-
) called mission statement that says, "The mission of
) this school is to sharpen the competitive edge of
) America in the global marketplace."
)
) Francesca once said to me, "I'm damned if I'm going to"
) -- I don't think she said "damned," because she's too
) polite; maybe "darned" -- "treat these little babies as
) commodities or products. Why should they care about
) global markets? They care about bellybuttons, and
) wobbly teeth, and beautiful books about caterpillars."
) I think we have to protect those qualities.
)
) Most of the teachers we're trying so hard to recruit
) into these schools, then driving out, tend to be the
) children of the 1960s generation, and they are steeped
) in civil rights values, and those who have gone to good
) colleges and universities come into these schools with
) what I would call almost a preferential option for
) minority children of the poor. But no matter what
) they've read beforehand, they're generally stunned at
) the profound class and racial segregation they
) encounter. It's not as if they didn't know that this
) was the case, but when they're suddenly in a class, as
) Francesca was, with not a single white child and only
) three white kids in the entire building, it hits them
) hard.
)
) Is that how Francesca experienced it?
)
) Francesca and I once had a long talk. I tend to say
) that we've basically ripped apart the legacy of Brown
) v. Board of Education, but it was she who first pointed
) out to me that we haven't even lived up to the mandate
) of Plessy v. Ferguson, because our schools are
) obviously separate but they're certainly not equal.
)
) Now, especially with the recent Supreme Court decision
) [on segregation], there's a sense of profound anger
) among these teachers. A sense that everything they grew
) up to believe is good and right is being discarded by
) our society. They also note that despite all the
) fatuous claims from the secretary of education, the
) achievement gap between the races has not closed. And
) even worse, the cultural gap has actually widened
) because of the narrowing of the curriculum in these
) schools.
)
) Francesca, despite the fact that she refused to teach
) to the test, managed to be very effective in teaching
) skills, and her children did well. Apparently you don't
) need to hire Princeton Review to come into your school
) and use scarce education funds to pay them to create
) artificial test-score gains.
)
) You're an advocate now. Have you ever considered going
) back to the classroom yourself?
)
) All the time. When I was visiting Francesca's class, I
) was jealous of her. When I give lectures what usually
) happens is some teacher or principal in the audience
) will grab me at the end and say, "Do you have four
) hours tomorrow morning before you leave? Would you
) visit my school?" and I always try to do it. And then I
) don't want to leave because it really brings my spirits
) back. I love the unpredictable. I love the whimsical in
) children. I love it when a child asks me what you might
) think is a funny question, like, "Do you feel sad
) because you're old?" Or, "Is it lonesome to write?"
) It's a wonderful question, don't you think?
)
) I'm still very healthy and I sometimes think I would
) love to go back and teach first grade or second grade.
) First grade, under the best conditions, is what I call
) the miracle year, because that's the year when -- if
) you're in a reasonably good situation, and if your
) children have a little pre-K, and if they've had a good
) kindergarten year -- it's in first grade that you see
) the children go from knowing letters only as images,
) the shapes of the letters, to suddenly writing and
) reading. Writing real sentences and reading real books.
) That's a miracle to me. To me that's more dramatic than
) anything that happened to me at my four years at
) Harvard.
)
) This book revisits some of the topics -- like dealing
) with unsupportive administrators -- from your 1981
) book, "On Being a Teacher." Why did you feel the need
) to return to those subjects?
)
) Well, I've spent more time with other teachers since
) then and spent so much time in classrooms that -- I
) can't quite explain why. I know this book has a
) political cutting edge and it's going to make me a lot
) of enemies in Washington from the right-wing think-tank
) types. I'm sure they won't be sen