To the person who answered my Waldorf Education question, THANK YOU for your wonderful and detailled response.

Question

Unfortunately I haven't checked in for a few days and it seems I'm too late to choose your answer or even see who you are (I'm new to Answers and haven't quite figured it out yet!) But THANK YOU!

Answer 1

uhh? two points

Answer 2

No problem, it takes time to get used to using a new program.

I was long winded and actually maxed out the amount of text I was allowed to use, so it cut me off. I was going to e-mail the rest of my response to you, but your profile is set to not accept e-mails. So I will post the rest here...

Later, the same child was "caught" drawing a heart. This time, they asked her where she learned such a thing. It turns out that her parents had taken her to a fair and she was intrigued with the face painting that had been there. The school's way of handling this was to ask the parents not to bring the child to non-Waldorf activities until she was older.

Another time a sixth grader asked me how the copy machine in the office worked. Before I could even open my mouth, a teacher ran over to the child, and told him that there was a gnome asleep in the box.  When you pushed the button, a light went on, woke him up, and then he quickly copied the paper placed in front of him and pushed the copy out of the little hole. After the child left, I was told that we couldn’t “poison” the child’s mind with “stone cold facts”.

I must state, that I felt then and still do, that by boring these children, and/or not honoring their personal interests, questions, and abilities, we were stunting their emotional and academic growth even more. Then as now, I wonder how they could feel validated and respected by being told that they couldn't explore their personal interests, even on their own time.

What I saw as a lack of honoring of personal interests inhabited everything. Only certain colors were used at certain ages, only certain materials for certain groups. No black, no lines, no exceptions. I know that they had their reasons, but honestly, it got too much for me. I hated seeing the joy in a child’s face fade when I had to say, "You need to be *** to use that color paint. "

So I can tell you in all honesty that I personally felt it was a horribly restrictive environment, yes their music, art and movement classes are wonderful and definitely a great way to learn concepts and skills, I would even say at times even second to none, but their lack of seeing the child as more than an age or a personality type bothers me. I feel that it is important to use each child's natural strengths, needs, likes and learning styles as a guide to their learning.

But this is my experience shaded by my personal beliefs, another school, you a different person, might feel otherwise.

Answer 3

well if they answer this question, you can choose them for best answer. or you can go and vote on that one.