Comment by lostlogin
2 years ago
I went to a Waldorf school and now my daughter does. At around age 10-11 children learn about death and practices around it (Norse, Egyptian, local practices) and what it means. The Waldorf philosophy holds that children start to understand that death is a permanent loss at about that age, and aims to teach them about it.
Having a kid lose a pet at that age is a major thing for them to process.
I love the school, but the disorganised over-parenting libertarian hippies can be overbearing at times.
Is it true what they say that Waldorf is based in irrational teachings about the supernatural, and let's children go several courses without learning basic rational stuff like reading well and doing math?
I'm all for growing children with creative teaching and avoiding rote memorization, but I'd be horrified if that was at the cost of missing the best years for setting the pillars of rational thought.
There was a little bit of the loopy stuff early on, but vastly less than friends who went to religious schools got. For my daughter she has been exposed to less of that crap that when she was in a state funded school.
Reading is taught later in a Steiner school than at most schools, but not to any detriment measurable later in schooling.
I’m not sure how one would accurately quantify the final outcome as demographics etc come into it. From my time at school there are surgeons, physicists, engineers (or various types), lawyers, mathematicians, accountants, tv producers, teachers etc. We had our share of dropouts too.
I also don’t believe that the early years are the most important for what is learned, and that they are more important for learning how to learn and how to enjoy the process.