John Holland -- a creative marketing consultant and former Waldorf parent in Berkeley, Calif., who has created OpenWaldorf.com, a resource site for parents, educators and others interested in Waldorf, Steiner and Anthroposophy -- agrees. "The key to understanding Waldorf is Anthroposophy," says Holland, who tried to research Waldorf education on the Internet during his children's tenure there, but found a dearth of information. "I felt that I was missing a piece of the puzzle -- something important that I did not understand," he says.
Holland began to research Steiner's many lectures, books and essays to find out for himself what Anthroposophy was all about and what role it plays in Waldorf education. What he found by studying the primary texts is that Waldorf's theory about, say, delaying reading until age 7 or academics until age 14 is based wholly on Steiner's spiritual principles, not science. "I liken it to the abstinence movement," Holland says. "People would come into schools and tell kids all the practical reasons why they shouldn't have sex, but later we find out it was actually part of a Christian movement. Underneath the practical issue there was a moral issue; chastity was the core value."
Holland argues that the religious basis of a movement is not the problem, but the lack of disclosure about its religious roots is. And since Waldorf's whole philosophy is based on a set of religious values, Holland says, there is no real way to separate Anthroposophy from the Waldorf curriculum. "It's a closed system," he says. "The timing of when certain things are taught, the subject matter itself, all is dictated by Anthroposophy ... I tell people that Anthroposophy is the DNA of Waldorf education."
If, as Holland says, Anthroposophy is the DNA of Waldorf education, then how do schools contend with the philosophy's basis in racial and religious discrimination? Steiner's remarks on religion and race have caused an outcry among Waldorf critics, who say that Waldorf schooling cannot escape Steiner's bigoted roots. "Jewry as such has long since outlived its time; it has no more justification within the modern life of peoples, and the fact that it continues to exist is a mistake of world history whose consequences are unavoidable," said Steiner in an 1888 article in the German Weekly. Steiner's theory of reincarnation states that souls travel an upward path of consciousness, beginning with the "sub-races" (Africans) and ending with Aryans -- the most "enlightened" race. Said Steiner, "If the blonds and blue-eyed people die out, the human race will become increasingly dense ... Blond hair actually bestows intelligence."
Holland thinks these issues could be resolved if Waldorf educators and administrators would simply be honest about the inherent racism and anti-Semitism of some of Steiner's philosophies. A simple acknowledgment of Steiner's less-than-politically-correct viewpoints, along with a unified statement denouncing those viewpoints, is all Holland believes it would take for Waldorf schools, teachers and supporters to rise above accusations of racism and anti-Semitism.
He also points out that the ultimate goal of Anthroposophy is to lead children through the stages of reincarnation, which blurs the line between education and religion to an even greater extent. Nancy Frost*, a former Waldorf instructor, concurs: "I heard in a faculty meeting that there were many important souls waiting to reincarnate in this century and that they would only be able to do so if there were enough Waldorf schools," she says. "By the end of the year I taught there I was completely convinced that Waldorf constituted a cultlike religious movement which concealed its true nature from prospective parents."
Albert, the Princeton Waldorf School admissions coordinator, dismisses accusations that Waldorf is cultlike. "It doesn't make much sense to me at all," he says. "When you have a whole bunch of different teachers, their different interpretations of the schooling can vary. So within any institution there are varieties of opinion about what the education means and how to implement it."
"[Waldorf education] is 80 years old," Albert adds. "The fact that it has lasted so long speaks to the fact that it works."
Happy Waldorf parents are also skeptical of the criticisms. "A lot of people think that the curriculum is designed around some kind of brainwashing or stealth manipulation to indoctrinate the kids," says Stacy Aaron, of Portland. "That's just not true. I haven't seen that at all. I've seen many well-rounded kids enjoying their school environment and learning all kinds of things that kids don't get to experience at other schools."
"Any good school will be very upfront about the anthroposophical basis of Waldorf education," says Trish, a parent in Minneapolis who feels that her school's staff was honest about the spiritual aspects of Waldorf education. "There must be bad schools out there, just like there are in every different philosophy or style, but my experience has been really wonderful and enriching."
"I don't think that Waldorf schools work for everybody," says Albert, "and some of that is based on the consistency of values between home and school."
As for me, the pink-cheeked, wholesome-child fantasy was almost enough to sway me, and I considered trying to get over my issues with Anthroposophy, as I presume many parents do. But, as Albert says, Waldorf probably won't work for families who don't uphold its values at home -- and the idea of trying to uphold a value system I don't believe in unnerved me. There's a certain relief in the low expectations of me as a public-school parent: I'm not expected to believe in much of anything besides overpriced fundraiser merchandise. My family could come home and sit in front of the television for five straight hours, cramming Chee-tos into our sallow faces and breathing in the offgassing of plastic toys without my children's school's knowledge. (We don't. But we could.)
When my children began to attend the local public school, I was pleasantly surprised to find that they didn't start obsessively coloring within lines or raising their hands to speak at the dinner table. They may not be playing with wooden toys every day, but they're learning, they're happy, and they're still relatively innocent -- and that's good enough.
This story has been corrected and clarified since it was originally published.
About the writer
Meagan Francis is a freelance writer living in Michigan.
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