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The lead first paragraph of "Origins and history" includes: Steiner's "conception of education was deeply influenced by the Herbartian pedagogy...", but: 1_ this does not appear correctly to represent (and perhaps contradicts) what he expressed in (for instance) the lecture "Spiritual Science and Modern Education", given at Basel, 20 April 1920
[1] (p.18), and 2_There seems to be no other mention of Herbart or his pedagogy in the body of the article such as to merit such prominence in the lead. The article would be improved by either omitting this reference to Herbart or expanding on it critically in the body. If the latter would be UNDUE, then the former would apply. User:Qexigator|Qexigator]] (
talk) 18:23, 22 June 2014 (UTC) Now corrected.
Qexigator (
talk)
23:59, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
Pink Floyd's lead guitarist and vocalist David Gilmour enrolled his children into a Waldorf school, but has subsequently spoken out about the "horrific" experience it was. [5] Kurtis (talk) 14:33, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
A new section was recently added. The substance of the new section consists entirely of one magazine article. I read the magazine article and it references a government inquiry so I went looking for the results of said inquiry which I found in a joint press release from the school and the Ministry of Education. A named spokesperson for the Ministry of Education stated that the school in question "is operating as it should be".
This encyclopedia entry is not intended to be a newspaper of current events WP:NOT. I would say this is especially so when the events in question are not particularly newsworthy. A school "operating as it should be" is hardly noteworthy. Jellypear2 ( talk) 19:36, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
i see that after many many years, you've managed to quell the criticism and create an article completely devoid of it. Congratulations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.77.142.145 ( talk) 12:11, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
The recent addition to the lede repeated the three stages of W. education. Twice through in the lede is too much. Let's merge these. Also, the mention of body, soul, and spirit seemed out of place. This could appear in the lede, but where? Finally, the lede is already very long. Making it longer seems unwise.
I have reverted to the old lede but am encouraging merger and discussion. HGilbert ( talk) 21:08, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
I think this lead is WAY TOO dense and extensive. per WP:LEAD, the lead section should be concise, and a nice overview/summary. As it stands, the lead is explaining so many elements of other articles, it isn't summarizing this one.-- Shibbolethink ( talk) 17:45, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
@ Hgilbert:, I'm reverting your most recent edit. I just searched through the source you're citing in Ullrich, and I see no mention of Steiner's theories as closely following common sense theories proposed by Comenius and Pestalozzi. In fact, I see many sources saying the opposite is the case. I have a few sources that show that Steiner's theories ignore everything in Child Psychology since 1920, so the phrasing "since" seems incorrect. Can you give me a quote? -- Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 02:35, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
I think this article deserves some love and attention. As one anonymous poster puts it elsewhere on this talk page, criticism and detractions have all been neutralized in this article. Basically, while I think this article includes elements of criticism, those elements deserve to be centralized in "Reception." A reader should be able to scroll to the Reception section, and quickly absorb both the positives and negative receptions of a Waldorf-style Education. I'm gonna be taking some of this on in my free time, but I'd like to add elements of criticism that exist throughout the web, notably those critics of Waldorf-style education as a religious practice [1] [2], those critics of its foundation in pseudoscience [3], and those who believe the Waldorf system constitutes a pseudo-cult that inculcates its students [4]. These criticisms have multiple sources, and deserve to be placed in a conveniently located and condensed section in "Reception."-- Shibbolethink ( talk) 17:25, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
@ Hgilbert:, thought I might just give you the heads up, I'm gonna start expanding on the role of gnomes and faceless dolls in Waldorf education. [8]-- Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 16:26, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
References
((I'm putting the current reception section here, and I'll be making periodic edits to a new draft, that I'll employ soon after as a whole.))-- Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 18:15, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
In 2000, educational scholar Heiner Ullrich wrote that intensive study of Steiner's pedagogy had been in progress in educational circles in Germany since about 1990 and that positions were "highly controversial: they range from enthusiastic support to destructive criticism." [1] In 2008, the same scholar wrote that Waldorf schools have "not stirred comparable discussion or controversy....those interested in the Waldorf School today...generally tend to view this school form first and foremost as a representative of internationally recognized models of applied classic reform pedagogy" [2]: 140–141 and that critics tend to focus on what they see as Steiner's "occult neo-mythology of education" and to fear the risks of indoctrination in a worldview school, but lose an "unprejudiced view of the varied practice of the Steiner schools." [1]
Professor of Education Bruce Uhrmacher considers Steiner's view on education worthy of investigation for those seeking to improve public schooling, saying the approach serves as a reminder that "holistic education is rooted in a cosmology that posits a fundamental unity to the universe and as such ought to take into account interconnections among the purpose of schooling, the nature of the growing child, and the relationships between the human being and the universe at large", and that a curriculum need not be technocratic, but may equally well be arts-based. [3]: 382, 401
Thomas Nielsen, an assistant professor at the University of Canberra's Education Department, considers the imaginative teaching approaches used in Waldorf education (drama, exploration, storytelling, routine, arts, discussion and empathy) to be effective stimulators of spiritual-aesthetic, intellectual and physical development and recommends these to mainstream educators. [4] Andreas Schleicher, international coordinator of the PISA studies, commented on the "high degree of congruence between what the world demands of people, and what Waldorf schools develop in their pupils", placing a high value on creatively and productively applying knowledge to new realms. This enables "deep learning" that goes beyond studying for the next test. [5] Deborah Meier, principal of Mission Hill School and MacArthur grant recipient, whilst having some "quibbles" about the Waldorf schools, stated: "The adults I know who have come out of Waldorf schools are extraordinary people. That education leaves a strong mark of thoroughness, carefulness, and thoughtfulness." [6]
Professor of Comparative Education Hermann Röhrs describes Waldorf education as embodying original pedagogical ideas and presenting exemplary organizational capabilities. [7]
Robert Peterkin, Director of the Urban Superintendents Program at Harvard's Graduate School of Education and former Superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools during a period when Milwaukee funded a public Waldorf school, considers Waldorf education a "healing education" whose underlying principles are appropriate for educating all children. [8]
Waldorf education has also been studied as an example of educational neuroscience ideas in practice. [9]
References
Ullrich
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).UllrichRS
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Uhr
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Nielsen2004
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).A number of national, international and topic-based studies have been made of Waldorf education and its relationship with mainstream education. A UK Department for Education and Skills (DfES) report suggested that each type of school could learn from the other type's strengths: in particular, that state schools could benefit from Waldorf education's early introduction and approach to modern foreign languages; combination of block (class) and subject teaching for younger children; development of speaking and listening through an emphasis on oral work; good pacing of lessons through an emphasis on rhythm; emphasis on child development guiding the curriculum and examinations; approach to art and creativity; attention given to teachers’ reflective activity and heightened awareness (in collective child study for example); and collegial structure of leadership and management, including collegial study. Aspects of mainstream practice which could inform good practice in Waldorf schools included: management skills and ways of improving organizational and administrative efficiency; classroom management; work with secondary-school age children; and assessment and record keeping. [1]
Professor of Education Elliot Eisner sees Waldorf education exemplifying embodied learning and fostering a more balanced educational approach than American public schools achieve. [2] Ernest Boyer, former president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching commended the significant role the arts play throughout Waldorf education as a model for other schools to follow. [3]
In 2000 American state and private schools were described as drawing on Waldorf education – "less in whole than in part" – in expanding numbers. [4] Many elements of Waldorf pedagogy have been used in all Finnish schools for many years. [5]
References
Woods
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).{{
cite book}}
: |edition=
has extra text (
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cite book}}
: Explicit use of et al. in: |author=
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Jimenez
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Thebee, why are you reverting such absurdly minor edits? Templates in that format just LOOK better when they're at the top of a section. We already have inline "dubious" to make it clear which part is considered dubious. Could it be this is animosity in action?-- Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 21:55, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
From the end of Shibbolethink's large series of edits, there have been several full reverts of the material. Please do not escalate this into an edit war where folks have their participation restricted (or removed). Just because a particular user has not conducted three reverts, does not mean what is happening is not edit warring and will not be treated as such by drive by admins. There has been some good discussion on the talk page here, and articles can always get better (not just longer). -- Rocksanddirt ( talk) 20:52, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
References
@ Hgilbert: since you asked, here's the guardian article's quotes:
Waldorf education describes the process of incarnation as taking place in seven-year stages.
Since you feel that this is a matter of semantics, you won't mind my using the term that academic sources prefer in this context: "incarnation". HGilbert ( talk) 16:14, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
@ EPadmirateur:, I reverted the most recent two of your edits, because they remove well-sourced material. You said "accuracy" in your edit summary, could you explain further what you mean by "accuracy?" We've had long conversations about this on the talk page. If we're going to change these references, it should be to clarify their nature as from several sources, and not the opinion of everyone in the field. To be clear, there was no WP:CONSENSUS about this issue, so the references shouldn't be removed until we reach one.-- Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 03:41, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
Shibbolethink, I'd be glad to respond -- thanks for the opportunity. "Developmental stages" is the term of art in Waldorf pedagogy to describe the 7-year stages a child goes through in development from birth into adulthood. There is more to them than what "developmental stages" simply states but using the term "reincarnation" or "rebirth" is inaccurate and misleading as Hgilbert has been saying.
You will not find any WP:RS sources from independent academic authors that use the term "reincarnation" to explain the theory behind the 7-year developmental stages in Waldorf eduction. Relying on newspaper sources, however numerous, to support the introduction of the term "reincarnation" into the description of this theory is just plain wrong. If you're willing to hear more, I'd be very glad to explain more. -- EPadmirateur ( talk) 11:33, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
I mean guys, @ EPadmirateur:@ Hgilbert: we can come to an agreement about this, we shouldn't have to escalate to mediation or an ArbCom or w/e. I'm willing to compromise on the 7 year number if we explicitly include the words reincarnation where appropriate, and don't replace it with the sanitizing "term of art." This is not an article for adherents to the Waldorf system, it's an article to be read by interested parents. They deserve to know where the concept comes from.-- Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 16:26, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
I just added the advert tag, which I probably should have done before. In concert with the NPOV, this article uses a host of advert-like terms. To quote a few things that I noticed to be advert like:
These are not objective terms, and we cannot say that Steiner's worldview is an objective reality.
This sentence smacks of a defense of Waldorfian temperament-based seating, etc. Like something you would find on a Waldorf school website, not an encyclopedia.
holistic development is a buzzword-phrase if I've ever heard one.
What exactly does "unselfconscious imitation" mean? At the end of the day, I don't think these, and the other numerous examples of advert-like buzzword non-NPOV are the result of /bad faith/ but rather a misunderstanding of the nature of Wiki style :/ I'll be going through and attempting to fix this in the near future. If anyone else wants to help, just post here on what sections you'd like to focus on.-- Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 19:19, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
Steiner's human developmental construct is listed in Wikipedia under "Developmental Stage Theories" of which there are many similar physical, emotional, psychological, even spiritual constructs. "Reincarnation" is outside all Developmental Stage Theories as it occurs after death and not during life. One can only have one life at a time therefore one may not reincarnate while you are still alive. Should this reference be removed from this section? Greeddados ( talk) 19:18, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
How could one reincarnate every seven years??? The cited NYTimes article is clearly not a competent source for Steiner's views. If we wish to refer to these views, we should use the many high-quality academic analyses of Steiner's thinking, none of which suggests any sort of 7-year reincarnation plan. Nor does anything in Steiner's works support this. I have removed this curious passage.
FYI: What Steiner actually suggested was that people generally reincarnate every thousand years or so, but that it is very variable. HGilbert ( talk) 19:52, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
-> Please see wikipedia's "Developmental Stage Theories" listing which refers to Steiner's, and other theoriests, 7-year phases. Greeddados ( talk) 19:24, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
References
Clearly, at most, the NYT article from 2000 can be used in good consciousness at present, citing it as source for "a type of reincarnation" taking place every seven years, as a full reincarnation of the spirit would require first a full excarnation of the spirit, meaning that the person dies, and I very much doubt anyone, anywhere has claimed that as taking place at seven, or fourteen, or 21, and that it then has been published by a reliable fact-checking source. Thebee ( talk) 08:33, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
Might a newbie here offer that "seven-year reincarnations" is an interesting but highly misleading rendering of something actually well known? Namely, that the mineral content of the human body is cycled out, even from the teeth, so that isotope-marked chemicals are found to have completely disappeared within a span of seven years. (The teeth actually replace their content faster.) This is an extremely literal (but not inaccurate?) rendering of "re-in-carn-ation"; perhaps some fan or critic of Waldorf thought it was a clever insight to identify it as a "reincarnation."
Anyway, one of Steiner's major students, Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, spoke of this in 1958 in a public lecture on nutrition, as follows: "Now we must ask ourselves: what does metabolism mean? ... If I had stood seven years ago on this podium and one had made a little sign somewhere in the [chemical] substance in my body, and I had stood here again today, you would not find the smallest remnant of such a mark. Instead, a completely different substance would be here. This picture could be compared with the bed of a stream and the stream itself. The water in the stream is never the same; at every second it is different, while the bed of the stream remains. ... So it is also with our body. ... After seven years we have arrived, so to speak, at the end point, where one can be absolutely certain that nothing of the original substance remains anymore." This lecture was published in English in 1981 in a small booklet. [1]. TomShoshoni ( talk) 12:23, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
Tom's note is interesting. If the physical substance is regarded as the body, then there is a new body every seven years, and whatever it is that incarnates is incarnated in a new body. But is that reincarnation? No one I'm aware of uses that conception, logical though it may be. Anthroposophists regard the body of life-formative forces (etheric body) as the enduring "life form" rather than the chemicals. — The quotes in the New York Times article are certainly interesting but they are reflect individual interviews. Every Waldorf school is independent; there is no kind of doctrinal authority as in religious schools. Every Waldorf teacher is called on to exert herself or himself to meet each of the unique persons in the class and to work with their development artistically, which doesn't leave a lot of time for other studies. Some teachers are anthroposophists, but that is an unavoidably loose term, since the scope of anthroposophy touches almost every aspect of culture and Steiner emphasized freedom as the basis of further human development; and some of them will take anthroposophy up in a literal and dogmatic way according to their characters. If some teacher has picked up the idea of seven-year reincarnation and mentions it to a New York Times reporter, that may get printed, but it doesn't make it a credible account of Waldorf education or anthroposophy. The most authoritative sources are Steiner and the various heads of the Pedagogical Section since 1924 at the Goetheanum. One wonders how reincarnation may be handled in India now, given that it is a traditional concept there, but that Steiner's view of it differed significantly from Hindu-Vedantic authorities. jb ( talk) 01:37, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
I would suggest that we rely on academic/peer-reviewed sources for general material about the education, and restrict newspapers to information about current events or disputes. HGilbert ( talk) 23:01, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
Here are quotes from these sources verifying the claims that User:Hgilbert has marked as dubious:
That should be sufficient. See above as well, if you produce sources refuting the seven years claim, we can clarify the seven years claim by saying that prominent staff on these news sources have reported this fact, while scholars dispute it.-- Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 21:37, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
@ Hgilbert: If I change the mentions to "The NYT, BBC, the Atlantic, and the Guardian have reported that Waldorf education systems...blah blah blah 7 years reincarnation etc." will you remove the dubious claims? Then we're making it directly about it being said elsewhere.-- Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 21:26, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
I have added a thought about this "seven-year reincarnation" above under Reincarnation. TomShoshoni ( talk) 12:46, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
References
I agree that the lead is somewhat overlong, but let's work on it section by section, and above all avoid introducing grammatically-confusing passages. HGilbert ( talk) 20:34, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
Recent edits have added a lot of loose wording that ends up being very misleading. I will begin to list these here. Feel free to comment inline.
Calling WE a "semi-official theory of education" in Europe is misleading. The lead should be changed to reflect the real situation, which is one of wide acceptance and influence. Look at the old wording (why was this changed???) for a clearer statement of the facts. HGilbert ( talk) 17:57, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
Waldorf Education does have a lot of roots in magical thinking. When I first read this article, I did not get that at all anywhere in the text. I think that's a failure of the former structure of the article and the issues with NPOV. other WP:RSes made that clear, including actually reading in depth the academic sources referenced here. It seemed to me there was a systematic de-emphasis on the magical thinking elements. Do you disagree?-- Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 22:54, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
I want to stick to reliable sources, which clearly distinguish
Both of these have their place. Just don't try to confuse them. Perhaps it would defuse the situation if we would simply quote any academic source on the subject instead of using either of our wordings. HGilbert ( talk) 12:53, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, much of the ideas resident in the sections "Educational Theory" and "Educational Practice" are incredibly interrelated, if not the exact same. I'd like to embark on a small project to merge these two into a single section, "Educational Theory and Practice." The goal of this article should be to educate a layperson on the ideas inherent to Waldorf education and how the practice of education exists in Waldorf Schools. At the moment, I feel that is impeded by over-complication and overt verbosity. Thoughts? -- Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 05:20, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
I am finding many statements that are "supported" with citations which do not even mention the specific topic, e.g.
The term "holistic education" is not a buzzword or advert; it is a descriptive term used frequently in contemporary discussions of education. A Worldcat search for the term reveals numerous mainstream publications that use the term in the title or self-description. A Google scholar search reveals more than 700,000 hits.
That it is applicable to WE is verifiable by numerous RS, notably Thomas William Nielsen's Rudolf Steiner's pedagogy of imagination : a case study of holistic education, published by a mainstream press. HGilbert ( talk) 13:51, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
Is this issue resolved, or are there further questions? HGilbert ( talk) 08:45, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
I would like to help to satisfy the issues that an editor has listed. I will start with:
This article may contain an excessive amount of intricate detail that may only interest a specific audience. (March 2015)
Please list the details which have been considered to be excessive and I will work on it. Thanks! Gandydancer ( talk) 16:48, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
I have reorganized the theory and practice section topically: Early Childhood and connected themes, elementary school and connected themes, high school, curriculum and connected themes, etc. (Themes were somewhat scrambled previously.) The actual text is unchanged.
I have also moved the section on evaluations of the education to the reception section. HGilbert ( talk) 00:05, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
I have reason to believe that Shibbolethink is a sockpuppet for the banned User:Pete K. Same style, edits, personal comments. There was a poorly disguised attempt to make a few edits on other pages to establish himself as an editor and then he promptly turned to massive, single-purpose editing. I am reverting the banned user's edits. HGilbert ( talk) 13:52, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
Here's how I found this article and started this project: I was sitting in my living room, having a conversation with a friend of mine from college about how he was raised in Waldorf Schools and attributes a lot of his eccentricities to the practices therein, and so I decided to look it up on Wiki, having never heard of the schools or of Steiner. What I found was an obvious promotional page, needing lots of love and attention. So I decided to devote a large portion of my free time to make this article NPOV. I have no dog in this fight, I have no relationship to Waldorf Schools or education, I only know this one person who's ever even gone to a Waldorf school, and even that was just until the second epoch. Pete K was clearly an activist editor, he published websites, all this other stuff elsewhere on the web and elsewhere in wikiland, all anti-Waldorf and particularly anti-Hgilbert. I have done none of that, I am not him, and I have no dog in the fight of this article. I'm purely interested in making it adhere to wiki standards.-- Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 14:59, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
Checkuser has confirmed numerous other accounts as sockpuppets of this user. See [6], [7], [8]. I will prepare a Sockpuppet case, but this will take some time. HGilbert ( talk) 17:23, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
Yeah this user is definitely not a sockpuppet. After looking through his history, he has done many things other than edit this article. His edits to this article were constructive, and personally I think this article should have a topic ban re: Hgilbert, who clearly can't restrain himself from slanting the POV and publishing original research. Whitehat2009 ( talk) 18:58, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
I withdraw this supposition. It is clear that Shibbolethink and Pete K are entirely different people. My apologies. Furthermore, if my fellow editors think it appropriate, I am happy to delete this entire section. HGilbert ( talk) 23:41, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
In line with the excessive detail tag, I am removing (and archiving here) material that is either duplicated or does not seem to add substantially to the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hgilbert ( talk • contribs)
There was indeed a lot of fat; I have now cut more than 10% of the article's length. Specific suggestions would be helpful, however! HGilbert ( talk) 09:12, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
Only one sentence of this section is specific to WE. I am archiving the rest here for the moment and have moved the one sentence that is specific to the reception section, where it fits better.
In preliteracy research, the topic of best teaching practice is controversial. Some scholars favor a developmental approach in which formal instruction on reading begins around the age of 6 or 7 and others who argue for literacy instruction to occur in pre-school and kindergarten classrooms, assuming that other activities are taking place as well. [8]
In a discussion on academic kindergartens, professor of child development
David Elkind has argued that since "there is no solid research demonstrating that early academic training is superior to (or worse than) the more traditional, hands-on model of early education" educators should defer to developmental approaches that provide young children with ample time and opportunity to explore the natural world on their own terms.
[9] Elkind names Rudolf Steiner as one of the "giants of early-childhood development" and describes activities for young children in a Waldorf school as "social," "holistic," and "collaborative," as well as reflecting the principle that "early education must start with the child, not with the subject matter to be taught."
[9] In response
Grover Whitehurst, educational policy chair at the
Brookings Institution, argues the opposite. In his view, the lack of solid research demonstrating the benefits of early academics merely reveals the urgent need for an evidence-based "science of early education." He laments that early education scholarship is "mired in philosophy, in broad theories of the nature of child development, and in practices that spring from appeals to authority," such as Elkind's praise for those "giants of early-childhood development" whose work reflects
Jean Piaget’s insights.
[9]
Sebastian Suggate has performed analysis of the PISA 2007 OECD data from 54 countries and found "no association between school entry age ... and reading achievement at age 15". [10] He also cites a German study [11] of 50 kindergartens that compared children who, at age 5, had spent a year either "academically focused", or "play-arts focused" — in time the two groups became inseparable in reading skill. Suggate concludes that the effects of early reading are like "watering a garden before a rainstorm; the earlier watering is rendered undetectable by the rainstorm, the watering wastes precious water, and the watering detracts the gardener from other important preparatory groundwork." [10]
In 2013, Waldorf kindergartens in the United Kingdom were granted an exemption from and modifications of a number of the government's Early Learning Goals, including the requirement that early childhood programs include a reading and writing curriculum. The exemption was granted on the basis that certain of these goals run counter to Waldorf early childhood education's established principles. [12]
I think User:Dkriegls brings up an excellent source that should be included prominently in the Science instruction section. Here are the highlights:
"Waldorf does not, for example, fully align itself with the national science standards, though as the reviewers point out, there are numerous favorable processes that support science as inquiry, so they gave pedagogical appropriateness and science content fairly high ratings, overall. On the other hand, some of the concerns the reviewers raised about questionable concepts would be reason enough for some critics to discredit Waldorf science education all together. The evolutionary notion that animals are the by-products of human development, that the spirit of man physically incarnated into soul qualities that manifested themselves into various animal forms, is highly suspect as a valid scientific theory. So is the geological position that earth evolved through Lemurian and Atlantean epochs and is now in its fifth post-Atlantean epoch. Or the theory that the four kingdoms of nature are mineral, plant, animal and man. "
"Though it is true that some Waldorf teachers demonstrated a high degree of scientific understanding and others a high degree of “Waldorf-specific” concepts (e.g., Steiner’s view of evolution), the majority actually appeared to be struggling with the question about what should be taught and how it should be taught. There was struggle over whether Rudolf Steiner’s teachings about science had any place in the curriculum, or if content to be delivered should be drawn from more mainstream sources. In actuality, the majority of Waldorf teachers we interviewed pointed to this latter choice as the more ideal; albeit they were uncertain about how to go about doing this."
"There is also an argument that Anthroposophy and Waldorf Education are inseparable. If that is true then it is difficult to understand how Waldorf could offer a viable form of science education. But many educators argue that the methods of Waldorf and Anthroposophy are separable -- public Waldorf educators have gone so far as to argue this point in court when challenged on separation of church-state issues. Legal ramifications aside, there is little doubt that a distinct separation from Anthroposophy is needed. Consider the anthroposophical tenets of developmentalism and evolution. Steiner’s developmentalism is based on his teachings that children pass through three 7-year stages: the first characterized by the reincarnated human spirit adjusting to the physical world; the second by the incarnation of the “etheric” body with the physical body; and the third by the incarnation of the “astral” body. [emphasis mine]
"By removing Anthroposophy the arguments of Waldorf’s questionable philosophical foundation are removed and Waldorf can focus, instead, on the strengths of its methodology and ways to improve it. It should be noted, however, that rejecting Steiner and Anthroposophy as the source of accurate scientific concepts does not signify the rejection of the many exemplary Waldorf methods that have attracted the attention of innumerable parents, educators and academics."
So, by the way, there's another source that reincarnation is a prime element of the developmental stages. So why not include it?-- Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 17:25, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
See Talk:Waldorf education/Science for a workspace to synthesize these. HGilbert ( talk) 16:18, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
The paper cited at the top of this section was already used in the science section, though it did not appear in the references. Instead, a Routledge Studies in Science Education review's analysis of this was used. For clarity, I have added the original paper as a citation, as well.
The review is comprehensive and as a secondary source is a Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources#Primary.2C_secondary.2C_and_tertiary_sources preferred reliable source. More material should be brought in from it. HGilbert ( talk) 10:16, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
I have now added an overview from the secondary source and a specific recommendation from the Jelinek study. HGilbert ( talk) 10:33, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
This is a different topic, but deserves an answer. Note that the authors use the term reincarnation once, and incarnation the other times. We reincarnate once each lifetime; then there is a process of progressive incarnation, which passes through several stages (independent physical existence with conception/birth; independent memories and habits with around 6-7 years of age; independent judgment and emotional and intellectual life at around 13 years). Please do not continue to confuse the developmental path of incarnation and reincarnation. HGilbert ( talk) 23:45, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
Agree. There should be an objective presentation of how the idea of reincarnation manifests in WE. See my proposal above. HGilbert ( talk) 08:47, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
I wonder if there is enough material where there is effective agreement to begin implementing the above solutions in the article. HGilbert ( talk) 20:55, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
"Articles should rely on secondary sources whenever possible" according to Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources#Scholarship, which also suggests scholarly articles and books are to be preferred over news reports (except where the latter provide information about recent events that would not have been able to be included in earlier publications). Much of this article already cites sources that meet these standards, but where this is not yet the case, I am trying to find higher quality sources. As a first phase, I am using encyclopedias of education, a large number of which have articles on Waldorf education. It seems to me that these will provide a general overview from the perspective of an encyclopedia and so might be particularly useful. HGilbert ( talk) 23:36, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
As there is no detailed examination of the grounds for WE's positive reception given in the lede, it violates NPOV to go into considerable detail as to the grounds for its negative reception. I am moving these details to the appropriate sections. These could return if equal detail is provided for both aspects, but I do not see that this is done for other, similar articles (public education, Montessori education, etc.)
Another way of saying this: the Reception section's representation in the lede should reflect proportionally the contents of this section. HGilbert ( talk) 07:34, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
It seems clear that the lede should focus on issues closely connected to the schools and educational philosophy. Does a critique of Steiner's comments on race qualify?
This really belongs to the article on Steiner. The fact that critics of WE have sometimes mentioned Steiner's valuations of race in connection to the education can be included in this article, but why in the lede? I know of (and the present citations list) no suggestion that these valuations actually play a role in the schools.
Finally, if the consensus is that this should stay in the lede, should not the fact that several empirical studies have demonstrated that Waldorf students have considerable less racial prejudice than students from other schools also be included in the lede for balance? HGilbert ( talk) 01:52, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
I am wondering if the information about the threefold structure of the education, and the second paragraph overview of its goals and character, should not be switched. The lede wuold then read,
(followed by the rest of the current lede). Any thoughts? HGilbert ( talk) 10:54, 25 April 2015 (UTC)
This was under curriculum, but there is no suggestion that this is part of the curriculum of the schools. I have made a separate section for this under Reception. Is there a better place? I am open to any suggestions. (If there was a section on "Community", which there could well be, it would really belong there.) HGilbert ( talk) 09:56, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
A couple of years ago DGG placed an advert tag on this article (which was removed fairly shortly afterwards with no substantive article change), complaining it insufficiently covered criticism of Waldorf education. Looking over this article again, this problems does not just remain but has got much worse. I have removed some synthesis and "pull quoted" Steiner but much remains to do. I mean really: having (for example) "Steiner's belief that all people are imbued with a spiritual core has fueled Waldorf schools' social mission" in Wikipedia's voice is out-and-out brochure writing. I am also raising an alert at WP:FT/N. Alexbrn ( talk) 10:37, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
Let me clarify what I said. "Steiner is the definitive source for Steiner" not, "Steiner is the final authority on Steiner." By this i mean that what Steiner says about his system is definitive, is the final word. Its seems arrogant of us to assume Steiner was not in the best position to describe his own system. Are there secondary sources that also describe that system? Sure. Primary sources are accepted sources if used with care, and in a case were we are looking for content on what Steiner had to say about what he established such primary sources are not only acceptable but as I said definitive. My comment was general per quotes in general. I'll leave you to edit further.( Littleolive oil ( talk) 21:09, 31 August 2015 (UTC))
The ban on quoting Steiner is no longer extant, though I agree it should still apply for controversial areas. For describing the intent of the education, he seems an entirely appropriate source. Furthermore, it does not matter if other educational approaches share this goal; it is still relevant to this particular approach. However, as a general rule, if something is controversial, etic sources are probably better to rely on.
I am putting in direct quotations to replace the summary statement removed; I agree it is better to have specifics than a generalization. HGilbert ( talk) 22:17, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
RE: The above critique of the statement "Steiner's belief that all people are imbued with a spiritual core has fueled Waldorf schools' social mission"... This is cited to a tertiary source that states "As Steiner believed that it is the spirit that comprehends knowledge and the spirit is the same in all people, regardless of mental or physical differences, he was a pioneer in educating the mentally and physically handicapped (as people were then described), which today is referred to as a policy of inclusion." (Encyclopedia of Primary Education). Would you like to suggest how to summarize this differently? HGilbert ( talk) 22:54, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
The last time the advert tag was used on this article, the person who put it on refused to say how the article specifically needed improvement. It was removed because of this. Please give concrete examples of statements that need improvement (not ones you've already removed, please) so that these improvements can be made. HGilbert ( talk) 22:58, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
I removed the following:
Reviewers of this study criticized the authors' implication that it is possible for supposedly inaccurate science to lead to demonstrably better scientific understanding.<ref name=alt_woods>{{cite book|last=Woods|first=Philip A.|title=Alternative Education for the 21st Century Philosophies, Approaches, Visions|year=2008|publisher=Palgrave|isbn=978-0-230-60276-2|author2=Glenys J. Woods |page=219|quote="There are unresolved conflicts here, principally between a science education based on "inaccurate science" that leads to better scientific understanding."}}</ref>
The previous sentence already states that Waldorf science education produces students with better understanding of science despite criticism of the curriculum. So, this sentence is reiterating the contradiction, and without seeing the quote in context it's possible OR. Roches ( talk) 22:45, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
Get what published? Or cite what opinion? There were two sentences:
Those appear to say the same thing. I have no opinion at all about Waldorf education, the text just looked like it was making the same point twice. Roches ( talk) 23:15, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
That is a passage which does not make much sense as it stands, even with the additional explanation offered in the above comment, and needs to be clarified by an editor who sufficiently understands the content of all the sources cited in that section, especially [12], for which the abstract is:
Qexigator ( talk) 10:17, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
Alexbrn replaced a direct quotation with an inaccurate summary, claiming that this was done to ensure fidelity to the original. The two versions are:
I suggest we return to the direct quotation. The edited (2nd) version is incredibly far from the source. HGilbert ( talk) 19:37, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
References
Year6
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).So I would suggest:
Anthroposophy, the spiritual foundation of the Waldorf approach, underpins the primary pedagogical goals of enabling the child:
A very long time ago I painstakingly used Bo Dahlin and Martin Ashley's reviews of Jelinek & Sun as a way to incorporate Jelinek & Sun's criticisms of the science curriculum. As some of you may remember, the wikipedia issue is that Jelinek's paper is a primary source for his findings and it has never been peer reviewed. Editors must use reliable secondary sources as the basis for their editing. So that is what I did and then somewhere along the line the whole affair got shortened. I think that it is important that the Waldorf students and the public school students were evaluated through the TIMMS test of scientific understanding. That is an international and validated measure. The Waldorf students outscored the public school students in one area and had statistically similar scores on another section. Jelinek's conclusions about the curriculum are paradoxical only when this information is included. I can re-write it again but I'd rather not. I should mention that I summarize and synthesize research in academic articles IRL. Jellypear ( talk) 18:14, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
In the name of consistency: How, in the article, do we get to The spiritual foundation of the Waldorf approach, Anthroposophy, underpins its primary pedagogical goals..., [14] given that the article begins: Waldorf (Steiner) education is a humanistic approach to pedagogy based on the educational philosophy of the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy.- which concurs with the passage in 'Spirituality' section: Tom Stehlik places Waldorf education in a humanistic tradition, and contrasts its philosophically grounded approach to "value-neutral" secular state schooling systems.? I may have missed something. Qexigator ( talk) 07:44, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
We've got Hgilbert reverting [15] text in this article in which he has a FCOI: this ia against the recommendation of our guidelines and so is not good, especially when the wider community has identified a promotional tinge to this article which needs correction. Probably best if the lede summarizes the article properly, is in WP:SYNC with the articles it Wikilinks to, and - for a controversial topic - is supported by actual references rather than being brochure-style text without citation. Alexbrn ( talk) 18:43, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
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Archive 10 | ← | Archive 12 | Archive 13 | Archive 14 | Archive 15 |
The lead first paragraph of "Origins and history" includes: Steiner's "conception of education was deeply influenced by the Herbartian pedagogy...", but: 1_ this does not appear correctly to represent (and perhaps contradicts) what he expressed in (for instance) the lecture "Spiritual Science and Modern Education", given at Basel, 20 April 1920
[1] (p.18), and 2_There seems to be no other mention of Herbart or his pedagogy in the body of the article such as to merit such prominence in the lead. The article would be improved by either omitting this reference to Herbart or expanding on it critically in the body. If the latter would be UNDUE, then the former would apply. User:Qexigator|Qexigator]] (
talk) 18:23, 22 June 2014 (UTC) Now corrected.
Qexigator (
talk)
23:59, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
Pink Floyd's lead guitarist and vocalist David Gilmour enrolled his children into a Waldorf school, but has subsequently spoken out about the "horrific" experience it was. [5] Kurtis (talk) 14:33, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
A new section was recently added. The substance of the new section consists entirely of one magazine article. I read the magazine article and it references a government inquiry so I went looking for the results of said inquiry which I found in a joint press release from the school and the Ministry of Education. A named spokesperson for the Ministry of Education stated that the school in question "is operating as it should be".
This encyclopedia entry is not intended to be a newspaper of current events WP:NOT. I would say this is especially so when the events in question are not particularly newsworthy. A school "operating as it should be" is hardly noteworthy. Jellypear2 ( talk) 19:36, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
i see that after many many years, you've managed to quell the criticism and create an article completely devoid of it. Congratulations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.77.142.145 ( talk) 12:11, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
The recent addition to the lede repeated the three stages of W. education. Twice through in the lede is too much. Let's merge these. Also, the mention of body, soul, and spirit seemed out of place. This could appear in the lede, but where? Finally, the lede is already very long. Making it longer seems unwise.
I have reverted to the old lede but am encouraging merger and discussion. HGilbert ( talk) 21:08, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
I think this lead is WAY TOO dense and extensive. per WP:LEAD, the lead section should be concise, and a nice overview/summary. As it stands, the lead is explaining so many elements of other articles, it isn't summarizing this one.-- Shibbolethink ( talk) 17:45, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
@ Hgilbert:, I'm reverting your most recent edit. I just searched through the source you're citing in Ullrich, and I see no mention of Steiner's theories as closely following common sense theories proposed by Comenius and Pestalozzi. In fact, I see many sources saying the opposite is the case. I have a few sources that show that Steiner's theories ignore everything in Child Psychology since 1920, so the phrasing "since" seems incorrect. Can you give me a quote? -- Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 02:35, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
I think this article deserves some love and attention. As one anonymous poster puts it elsewhere on this talk page, criticism and detractions have all been neutralized in this article. Basically, while I think this article includes elements of criticism, those elements deserve to be centralized in "Reception." A reader should be able to scroll to the Reception section, and quickly absorb both the positives and negative receptions of a Waldorf-style Education. I'm gonna be taking some of this on in my free time, but I'd like to add elements of criticism that exist throughout the web, notably those critics of Waldorf-style education as a religious practice [1] [2], those critics of its foundation in pseudoscience [3], and those who believe the Waldorf system constitutes a pseudo-cult that inculcates its students [4]. These criticisms have multiple sources, and deserve to be placed in a conveniently located and condensed section in "Reception."-- Shibbolethink ( talk) 17:25, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
@ Hgilbert:, thought I might just give you the heads up, I'm gonna start expanding on the role of gnomes and faceless dolls in Waldorf education. [8]-- Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 16:26, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
References
((I'm putting the current reception section here, and I'll be making periodic edits to a new draft, that I'll employ soon after as a whole.))-- Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 18:15, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
In 2000, educational scholar Heiner Ullrich wrote that intensive study of Steiner's pedagogy had been in progress in educational circles in Germany since about 1990 and that positions were "highly controversial: they range from enthusiastic support to destructive criticism." [1] In 2008, the same scholar wrote that Waldorf schools have "not stirred comparable discussion or controversy....those interested in the Waldorf School today...generally tend to view this school form first and foremost as a representative of internationally recognized models of applied classic reform pedagogy" [2]: 140–141 and that critics tend to focus on what they see as Steiner's "occult neo-mythology of education" and to fear the risks of indoctrination in a worldview school, but lose an "unprejudiced view of the varied practice of the Steiner schools." [1]
Professor of Education Bruce Uhrmacher considers Steiner's view on education worthy of investigation for those seeking to improve public schooling, saying the approach serves as a reminder that "holistic education is rooted in a cosmology that posits a fundamental unity to the universe and as such ought to take into account interconnections among the purpose of schooling, the nature of the growing child, and the relationships between the human being and the universe at large", and that a curriculum need not be technocratic, but may equally well be arts-based. [3]: 382, 401
Thomas Nielsen, an assistant professor at the University of Canberra's Education Department, considers the imaginative teaching approaches used in Waldorf education (drama, exploration, storytelling, routine, arts, discussion and empathy) to be effective stimulators of spiritual-aesthetic, intellectual and physical development and recommends these to mainstream educators. [4] Andreas Schleicher, international coordinator of the PISA studies, commented on the "high degree of congruence between what the world demands of people, and what Waldorf schools develop in their pupils", placing a high value on creatively and productively applying knowledge to new realms. This enables "deep learning" that goes beyond studying for the next test. [5] Deborah Meier, principal of Mission Hill School and MacArthur grant recipient, whilst having some "quibbles" about the Waldorf schools, stated: "The adults I know who have come out of Waldorf schools are extraordinary people. That education leaves a strong mark of thoroughness, carefulness, and thoughtfulness." [6]
Professor of Comparative Education Hermann Röhrs describes Waldorf education as embodying original pedagogical ideas and presenting exemplary organizational capabilities. [7]
Robert Peterkin, Director of the Urban Superintendents Program at Harvard's Graduate School of Education and former Superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools during a period when Milwaukee funded a public Waldorf school, considers Waldorf education a "healing education" whose underlying principles are appropriate for educating all children. [8]
Waldorf education has also been studied as an example of educational neuroscience ideas in practice. [9]
References
Ullrich
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).UllrichRS
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Uhr
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Nielsen2004
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).A number of national, international and topic-based studies have been made of Waldorf education and its relationship with mainstream education. A UK Department for Education and Skills (DfES) report suggested that each type of school could learn from the other type's strengths: in particular, that state schools could benefit from Waldorf education's early introduction and approach to modern foreign languages; combination of block (class) and subject teaching for younger children; development of speaking and listening through an emphasis on oral work; good pacing of lessons through an emphasis on rhythm; emphasis on child development guiding the curriculum and examinations; approach to art and creativity; attention given to teachers’ reflective activity and heightened awareness (in collective child study for example); and collegial structure of leadership and management, including collegial study. Aspects of mainstream practice which could inform good practice in Waldorf schools included: management skills and ways of improving organizational and administrative efficiency; classroom management; work with secondary-school age children; and assessment and record keeping. [1]
Professor of Education Elliot Eisner sees Waldorf education exemplifying embodied learning and fostering a more balanced educational approach than American public schools achieve. [2] Ernest Boyer, former president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching commended the significant role the arts play throughout Waldorf education as a model for other schools to follow. [3]
In 2000 American state and private schools were described as drawing on Waldorf education – "less in whole than in part" – in expanding numbers. [4] Many elements of Waldorf pedagogy have been used in all Finnish schools for many years. [5]
References
Woods
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).{{
cite book}}
: |edition=
has extra text (
help)
{{
cite book}}
: Explicit use of et al. in: |author=
(
help)
Jimenez
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Thebee, why are you reverting such absurdly minor edits? Templates in that format just LOOK better when they're at the top of a section. We already have inline "dubious" to make it clear which part is considered dubious. Could it be this is animosity in action?-- Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 21:55, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
From the end of Shibbolethink's large series of edits, there have been several full reverts of the material. Please do not escalate this into an edit war where folks have their participation restricted (or removed). Just because a particular user has not conducted three reverts, does not mean what is happening is not edit warring and will not be treated as such by drive by admins. There has been some good discussion on the talk page here, and articles can always get better (not just longer). -- Rocksanddirt ( talk) 20:52, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
References
@ Hgilbert: since you asked, here's the guardian article's quotes:
Waldorf education describes the process of incarnation as taking place in seven-year stages.
Since you feel that this is a matter of semantics, you won't mind my using the term that academic sources prefer in this context: "incarnation". HGilbert ( talk) 16:14, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
@ EPadmirateur:, I reverted the most recent two of your edits, because they remove well-sourced material. You said "accuracy" in your edit summary, could you explain further what you mean by "accuracy?" We've had long conversations about this on the talk page. If we're going to change these references, it should be to clarify their nature as from several sources, and not the opinion of everyone in the field. To be clear, there was no WP:CONSENSUS about this issue, so the references shouldn't be removed until we reach one.-- Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 03:41, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
Shibbolethink, I'd be glad to respond -- thanks for the opportunity. "Developmental stages" is the term of art in Waldorf pedagogy to describe the 7-year stages a child goes through in development from birth into adulthood. There is more to them than what "developmental stages" simply states but using the term "reincarnation" or "rebirth" is inaccurate and misleading as Hgilbert has been saying.
You will not find any WP:RS sources from independent academic authors that use the term "reincarnation" to explain the theory behind the 7-year developmental stages in Waldorf eduction. Relying on newspaper sources, however numerous, to support the introduction of the term "reincarnation" into the description of this theory is just plain wrong. If you're willing to hear more, I'd be very glad to explain more. -- EPadmirateur ( talk) 11:33, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
I mean guys, @ EPadmirateur:@ Hgilbert: we can come to an agreement about this, we shouldn't have to escalate to mediation or an ArbCom or w/e. I'm willing to compromise on the 7 year number if we explicitly include the words reincarnation where appropriate, and don't replace it with the sanitizing "term of art." This is not an article for adherents to the Waldorf system, it's an article to be read by interested parents. They deserve to know where the concept comes from.-- Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 16:26, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
I just added the advert tag, which I probably should have done before. In concert with the NPOV, this article uses a host of advert-like terms. To quote a few things that I noticed to be advert like:
These are not objective terms, and we cannot say that Steiner's worldview is an objective reality.
This sentence smacks of a defense of Waldorfian temperament-based seating, etc. Like something you would find on a Waldorf school website, not an encyclopedia.
holistic development is a buzzword-phrase if I've ever heard one.
What exactly does "unselfconscious imitation" mean? At the end of the day, I don't think these, and the other numerous examples of advert-like buzzword non-NPOV are the result of /bad faith/ but rather a misunderstanding of the nature of Wiki style :/ I'll be going through and attempting to fix this in the near future. If anyone else wants to help, just post here on what sections you'd like to focus on.-- Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 19:19, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
Steiner's human developmental construct is listed in Wikipedia under "Developmental Stage Theories" of which there are many similar physical, emotional, psychological, even spiritual constructs. "Reincarnation" is outside all Developmental Stage Theories as it occurs after death and not during life. One can only have one life at a time therefore one may not reincarnate while you are still alive. Should this reference be removed from this section? Greeddados ( talk) 19:18, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
How could one reincarnate every seven years??? The cited NYTimes article is clearly not a competent source for Steiner's views. If we wish to refer to these views, we should use the many high-quality academic analyses of Steiner's thinking, none of which suggests any sort of 7-year reincarnation plan. Nor does anything in Steiner's works support this. I have removed this curious passage.
FYI: What Steiner actually suggested was that people generally reincarnate every thousand years or so, but that it is very variable. HGilbert ( talk) 19:52, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
-> Please see wikipedia's "Developmental Stage Theories" listing which refers to Steiner's, and other theoriests, 7-year phases. Greeddados ( talk) 19:24, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
References
Clearly, at most, the NYT article from 2000 can be used in good consciousness at present, citing it as source for "a type of reincarnation" taking place every seven years, as a full reincarnation of the spirit would require first a full excarnation of the spirit, meaning that the person dies, and I very much doubt anyone, anywhere has claimed that as taking place at seven, or fourteen, or 21, and that it then has been published by a reliable fact-checking source. Thebee ( talk) 08:33, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
Might a newbie here offer that "seven-year reincarnations" is an interesting but highly misleading rendering of something actually well known? Namely, that the mineral content of the human body is cycled out, even from the teeth, so that isotope-marked chemicals are found to have completely disappeared within a span of seven years. (The teeth actually replace their content faster.) This is an extremely literal (but not inaccurate?) rendering of "re-in-carn-ation"; perhaps some fan or critic of Waldorf thought it was a clever insight to identify it as a "reincarnation."
Anyway, one of Steiner's major students, Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, spoke of this in 1958 in a public lecture on nutrition, as follows: "Now we must ask ourselves: what does metabolism mean? ... If I had stood seven years ago on this podium and one had made a little sign somewhere in the [chemical] substance in my body, and I had stood here again today, you would not find the smallest remnant of such a mark. Instead, a completely different substance would be here. This picture could be compared with the bed of a stream and the stream itself. The water in the stream is never the same; at every second it is different, while the bed of the stream remains. ... So it is also with our body. ... After seven years we have arrived, so to speak, at the end point, where one can be absolutely certain that nothing of the original substance remains anymore." This lecture was published in English in 1981 in a small booklet. [1]. TomShoshoni ( talk) 12:23, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
Tom's note is interesting. If the physical substance is regarded as the body, then there is a new body every seven years, and whatever it is that incarnates is incarnated in a new body. But is that reincarnation? No one I'm aware of uses that conception, logical though it may be. Anthroposophists regard the body of life-formative forces (etheric body) as the enduring "life form" rather than the chemicals. — The quotes in the New York Times article are certainly interesting but they are reflect individual interviews. Every Waldorf school is independent; there is no kind of doctrinal authority as in religious schools. Every Waldorf teacher is called on to exert herself or himself to meet each of the unique persons in the class and to work with their development artistically, which doesn't leave a lot of time for other studies. Some teachers are anthroposophists, but that is an unavoidably loose term, since the scope of anthroposophy touches almost every aspect of culture and Steiner emphasized freedom as the basis of further human development; and some of them will take anthroposophy up in a literal and dogmatic way according to their characters. If some teacher has picked up the idea of seven-year reincarnation and mentions it to a New York Times reporter, that may get printed, but it doesn't make it a credible account of Waldorf education or anthroposophy. The most authoritative sources are Steiner and the various heads of the Pedagogical Section since 1924 at the Goetheanum. One wonders how reincarnation may be handled in India now, given that it is a traditional concept there, but that Steiner's view of it differed significantly from Hindu-Vedantic authorities. jb ( talk) 01:37, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
I would suggest that we rely on academic/peer-reviewed sources for general material about the education, and restrict newspapers to information about current events or disputes. HGilbert ( talk) 23:01, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
Here are quotes from these sources verifying the claims that User:Hgilbert has marked as dubious:
That should be sufficient. See above as well, if you produce sources refuting the seven years claim, we can clarify the seven years claim by saying that prominent staff on these news sources have reported this fact, while scholars dispute it.-- Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 21:37, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
@ Hgilbert: If I change the mentions to "The NYT, BBC, the Atlantic, and the Guardian have reported that Waldorf education systems...blah blah blah 7 years reincarnation etc." will you remove the dubious claims? Then we're making it directly about it being said elsewhere.-- Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 21:26, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
I have added a thought about this "seven-year reincarnation" above under Reincarnation. TomShoshoni ( talk) 12:46, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
References
I agree that the lead is somewhat overlong, but let's work on it section by section, and above all avoid introducing grammatically-confusing passages. HGilbert ( talk) 20:34, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
Recent edits have added a lot of loose wording that ends up being very misleading. I will begin to list these here. Feel free to comment inline.
Calling WE a "semi-official theory of education" in Europe is misleading. The lead should be changed to reflect the real situation, which is one of wide acceptance and influence. Look at the old wording (why was this changed???) for a clearer statement of the facts. HGilbert ( talk) 17:57, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
Waldorf Education does have a lot of roots in magical thinking. When I first read this article, I did not get that at all anywhere in the text. I think that's a failure of the former structure of the article and the issues with NPOV. other WP:RSes made that clear, including actually reading in depth the academic sources referenced here. It seemed to me there was a systematic de-emphasis on the magical thinking elements. Do you disagree?-- Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 22:54, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
I want to stick to reliable sources, which clearly distinguish
Both of these have their place. Just don't try to confuse them. Perhaps it would defuse the situation if we would simply quote any academic source on the subject instead of using either of our wordings. HGilbert ( talk) 12:53, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, much of the ideas resident in the sections "Educational Theory" and "Educational Practice" are incredibly interrelated, if not the exact same. I'd like to embark on a small project to merge these two into a single section, "Educational Theory and Practice." The goal of this article should be to educate a layperson on the ideas inherent to Waldorf education and how the practice of education exists in Waldorf Schools. At the moment, I feel that is impeded by over-complication and overt verbosity. Thoughts? -- Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 05:20, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
I am finding many statements that are "supported" with citations which do not even mention the specific topic, e.g.
The term "holistic education" is not a buzzword or advert; it is a descriptive term used frequently in contemporary discussions of education. A Worldcat search for the term reveals numerous mainstream publications that use the term in the title or self-description. A Google scholar search reveals more than 700,000 hits.
That it is applicable to WE is verifiable by numerous RS, notably Thomas William Nielsen's Rudolf Steiner's pedagogy of imagination : a case study of holistic education, published by a mainstream press. HGilbert ( talk) 13:51, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
Is this issue resolved, or are there further questions? HGilbert ( talk) 08:45, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
I would like to help to satisfy the issues that an editor has listed. I will start with:
This article may contain an excessive amount of intricate detail that may only interest a specific audience. (March 2015)
Please list the details which have been considered to be excessive and I will work on it. Thanks! Gandydancer ( talk) 16:48, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
I have reorganized the theory and practice section topically: Early Childhood and connected themes, elementary school and connected themes, high school, curriculum and connected themes, etc. (Themes were somewhat scrambled previously.) The actual text is unchanged.
I have also moved the section on evaluations of the education to the reception section. HGilbert ( talk) 00:05, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
I have reason to believe that Shibbolethink is a sockpuppet for the banned User:Pete K. Same style, edits, personal comments. There was a poorly disguised attempt to make a few edits on other pages to establish himself as an editor and then he promptly turned to massive, single-purpose editing. I am reverting the banned user's edits. HGilbert ( talk) 13:52, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
Here's how I found this article and started this project: I was sitting in my living room, having a conversation with a friend of mine from college about how he was raised in Waldorf Schools and attributes a lot of his eccentricities to the practices therein, and so I decided to look it up on Wiki, having never heard of the schools or of Steiner. What I found was an obvious promotional page, needing lots of love and attention. So I decided to devote a large portion of my free time to make this article NPOV. I have no dog in this fight, I have no relationship to Waldorf Schools or education, I only know this one person who's ever even gone to a Waldorf school, and even that was just until the second epoch. Pete K was clearly an activist editor, he published websites, all this other stuff elsewhere on the web and elsewhere in wikiland, all anti-Waldorf and particularly anti-Hgilbert. I have done none of that, I am not him, and I have no dog in the fight of this article. I'm purely interested in making it adhere to wiki standards.-- Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 14:59, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
Checkuser has confirmed numerous other accounts as sockpuppets of this user. See [6], [7], [8]. I will prepare a Sockpuppet case, but this will take some time. HGilbert ( talk) 17:23, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
Yeah this user is definitely not a sockpuppet. After looking through his history, he has done many things other than edit this article. His edits to this article were constructive, and personally I think this article should have a topic ban re: Hgilbert, who clearly can't restrain himself from slanting the POV and publishing original research. Whitehat2009 ( talk) 18:58, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
I withdraw this supposition. It is clear that Shibbolethink and Pete K are entirely different people. My apologies. Furthermore, if my fellow editors think it appropriate, I am happy to delete this entire section. HGilbert ( talk) 23:41, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
In line with the excessive detail tag, I am removing (and archiving here) material that is either duplicated or does not seem to add substantially to the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hgilbert ( talk • contribs)
There was indeed a lot of fat; I have now cut more than 10% of the article's length. Specific suggestions would be helpful, however! HGilbert ( talk) 09:12, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
Only one sentence of this section is specific to WE. I am archiving the rest here for the moment and have moved the one sentence that is specific to the reception section, where it fits better.
In preliteracy research, the topic of best teaching practice is controversial. Some scholars favor a developmental approach in which formal instruction on reading begins around the age of 6 or 7 and others who argue for literacy instruction to occur in pre-school and kindergarten classrooms, assuming that other activities are taking place as well. [8]
In a discussion on academic kindergartens, professor of child development
David Elkind has argued that since "there is no solid research demonstrating that early academic training is superior to (or worse than) the more traditional, hands-on model of early education" educators should defer to developmental approaches that provide young children with ample time and opportunity to explore the natural world on their own terms.
[9] Elkind names Rudolf Steiner as one of the "giants of early-childhood development" and describes activities for young children in a Waldorf school as "social," "holistic," and "collaborative," as well as reflecting the principle that "early education must start with the child, not with the subject matter to be taught."
[9] In response
Grover Whitehurst, educational policy chair at the
Brookings Institution, argues the opposite. In his view, the lack of solid research demonstrating the benefits of early academics merely reveals the urgent need for an evidence-based "science of early education." He laments that early education scholarship is "mired in philosophy, in broad theories of the nature of child development, and in practices that spring from appeals to authority," such as Elkind's praise for those "giants of early-childhood development" whose work reflects
Jean Piaget’s insights.
[9]
Sebastian Suggate has performed analysis of the PISA 2007 OECD data from 54 countries and found "no association between school entry age ... and reading achievement at age 15". [10] He also cites a German study [11] of 50 kindergartens that compared children who, at age 5, had spent a year either "academically focused", or "play-arts focused" — in time the two groups became inseparable in reading skill. Suggate concludes that the effects of early reading are like "watering a garden before a rainstorm; the earlier watering is rendered undetectable by the rainstorm, the watering wastes precious water, and the watering detracts the gardener from other important preparatory groundwork." [10]
In 2013, Waldorf kindergartens in the United Kingdom were granted an exemption from and modifications of a number of the government's Early Learning Goals, including the requirement that early childhood programs include a reading and writing curriculum. The exemption was granted on the basis that certain of these goals run counter to Waldorf early childhood education's established principles. [12]
I think User:Dkriegls brings up an excellent source that should be included prominently in the Science instruction section. Here are the highlights:
"Waldorf does not, for example, fully align itself with the national science standards, though as the reviewers point out, there are numerous favorable processes that support science as inquiry, so they gave pedagogical appropriateness and science content fairly high ratings, overall. On the other hand, some of the concerns the reviewers raised about questionable concepts would be reason enough for some critics to discredit Waldorf science education all together. The evolutionary notion that animals are the by-products of human development, that the spirit of man physically incarnated into soul qualities that manifested themselves into various animal forms, is highly suspect as a valid scientific theory. So is the geological position that earth evolved through Lemurian and Atlantean epochs and is now in its fifth post-Atlantean epoch. Or the theory that the four kingdoms of nature are mineral, plant, animal and man. "
"Though it is true that some Waldorf teachers demonstrated a high degree of scientific understanding and others a high degree of “Waldorf-specific” concepts (e.g., Steiner’s view of evolution), the majority actually appeared to be struggling with the question about what should be taught and how it should be taught. There was struggle over whether Rudolf Steiner’s teachings about science had any place in the curriculum, or if content to be delivered should be drawn from more mainstream sources. In actuality, the majority of Waldorf teachers we interviewed pointed to this latter choice as the more ideal; albeit they were uncertain about how to go about doing this."
"There is also an argument that Anthroposophy and Waldorf Education are inseparable. If that is true then it is difficult to understand how Waldorf could offer a viable form of science education. But many educators argue that the methods of Waldorf and Anthroposophy are separable -- public Waldorf educators have gone so far as to argue this point in court when challenged on separation of church-state issues. Legal ramifications aside, there is little doubt that a distinct separation from Anthroposophy is needed. Consider the anthroposophical tenets of developmentalism and evolution. Steiner’s developmentalism is based on his teachings that children pass through three 7-year stages: the first characterized by the reincarnated human spirit adjusting to the physical world; the second by the incarnation of the “etheric” body with the physical body; and the third by the incarnation of the “astral” body. [emphasis mine]
"By removing Anthroposophy the arguments of Waldorf’s questionable philosophical foundation are removed and Waldorf can focus, instead, on the strengths of its methodology and ways to improve it. It should be noted, however, that rejecting Steiner and Anthroposophy as the source of accurate scientific concepts does not signify the rejection of the many exemplary Waldorf methods that have attracted the attention of innumerable parents, educators and academics."
So, by the way, there's another source that reincarnation is a prime element of the developmental stages. So why not include it?-- Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 17:25, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
See Talk:Waldorf education/Science for a workspace to synthesize these. HGilbert ( talk) 16:18, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
The paper cited at the top of this section was already used in the science section, though it did not appear in the references. Instead, a Routledge Studies in Science Education review's analysis of this was used. For clarity, I have added the original paper as a citation, as well.
The review is comprehensive and as a secondary source is a Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources#Primary.2C_secondary.2C_and_tertiary_sources preferred reliable source. More material should be brought in from it. HGilbert ( talk) 10:16, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
I have now added an overview from the secondary source and a specific recommendation from the Jelinek study. HGilbert ( talk) 10:33, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
This is a different topic, but deserves an answer. Note that the authors use the term reincarnation once, and incarnation the other times. We reincarnate once each lifetime; then there is a process of progressive incarnation, which passes through several stages (independent physical existence with conception/birth; independent memories and habits with around 6-7 years of age; independent judgment and emotional and intellectual life at around 13 years). Please do not continue to confuse the developmental path of incarnation and reincarnation. HGilbert ( talk) 23:45, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
Agree. There should be an objective presentation of how the idea of reincarnation manifests in WE. See my proposal above. HGilbert ( talk) 08:47, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
I wonder if there is enough material where there is effective agreement to begin implementing the above solutions in the article. HGilbert ( talk) 20:55, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
"Articles should rely on secondary sources whenever possible" according to Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources#Scholarship, which also suggests scholarly articles and books are to be preferred over news reports (except where the latter provide information about recent events that would not have been able to be included in earlier publications). Much of this article already cites sources that meet these standards, but where this is not yet the case, I am trying to find higher quality sources. As a first phase, I am using encyclopedias of education, a large number of which have articles on Waldorf education. It seems to me that these will provide a general overview from the perspective of an encyclopedia and so might be particularly useful. HGilbert ( talk) 23:36, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
As there is no detailed examination of the grounds for WE's positive reception given in the lede, it violates NPOV to go into considerable detail as to the grounds for its negative reception. I am moving these details to the appropriate sections. These could return if equal detail is provided for both aspects, but I do not see that this is done for other, similar articles (public education, Montessori education, etc.)
Another way of saying this: the Reception section's representation in the lede should reflect proportionally the contents of this section. HGilbert ( talk) 07:34, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
It seems clear that the lede should focus on issues closely connected to the schools and educational philosophy. Does a critique of Steiner's comments on race qualify?
This really belongs to the article on Steiner. The fact that critics of WE have sometimes mentioned Steiner's valuations of race in connection to the education can be included in this article, but why in the lede? I know of (and the present citations list) no suggestion that these valuations actually play a role in the schools.
Finally, if the consensus is that this should stay in the lede, should not the fact that several empirical studies have demonstrated that Waldorf students have considerable less racial prejudice than students from other schools also be included in the lede for balance? HGilbert ( talk) 01:52, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
I am wondering if the information about the threefold structure of the education, and the second paragraph overview of its goals and character, should not be switched. The lede wuold then read,
(followed by the rest of the current lede). Any thoughts? HGilbert ( talk) 10:54, 25 April 2015 (UTC)
This was under curriculum, but there is no suggestion that this is part of the curriculum of the schools. I have made a separate section for this under Reception. Is there a better place? I am open to any suggestions. (If there was a section on "Community", which there could well be, it would really belong there.) HGilbert ( talk) 09:56, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
A couple of years ago DGG placed an advert tag on this article (which was removed fairly shortly afterwards with no substantive article change), complaining it insufficiently covered criticism of Waldorf education. Looking over this article again, this problems does not just remain but has got much worse. I have removed some synthesis and "pull quoted" Steiner but much remains to do. I mean really: having (for example) "Steiner's belief that all people are imbued with a spiritual core has fueled Waldorf schools' social mission" in Wikipedia's voice is out-and-out brochure writing. I am also raising an alert at WP:FT/N. Alexbrn ( talk) 10:37, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
Let me clarify what I said. "Steiner is the definitive source for Steiner" not, "Steiner is the final authority on Steiner." By this i mean that what Steiner says about his system is definitive, is the final word. Its seems arrogant of us to assume Steiner was not in the best position to describe his own system. Are there secondary sources that also describe that system? Sure. Primary sources are accepted sources if used with care, and in a case were we are looking for content on what Steiner had to say about what he established such primary sources are not only acceptable but as I said definitive. My comment was general per quotes in general. I'll leave you to edit further.( Littleolive oil ( talk) 21:09, 31 August 2015 (UTC))
The ban on quoting Steiner is no longer extant, though I agree it should still apply for controversial areas. For describing the intent of the education, he seems an entirely appropriate source. Furthermore, it does not matter if other educational approaches share this goal; it is still relevant to this particular approach. However, as a general rule, if something is controversial, etic sources are probably better to rely on.
I am putting in direct quotations to replace the summary statement removed; I agree it is better to have specifics than a generalization. HGilbert ( talk) 22:17, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
RE: The above critique of the statement "Steiner's belief that all people are imbued with a spiritual core has fueled Waldorf schools' social mission"... This is cited to a tertiary source that states "As Steiner believed that it is the spirit that comprehends knowledge and the spirit is the same in all people, regardless of mental or physical differences, he was a pioneer in educating the mentally and physically handicapped (as people were then described), which today is referred to as a policy of inclusion." (Encyclopedia of Primary Education). Would you like to suggest how to summarize this differently? HGilbert ( talk) 22:54, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
The last time the advert tag was used on this article, the person who put it on refused to say how the article specifically needed improvement. It was removed because of this. Please give concrete examples of statements that need improvement (not ones you've already removed, please) so that these improvements can be made. HGilbert ( talk) 22:58, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
I removed the following:
Reviewers of this study criticized the authors' implication that it is possible for supposedly inaccurate science to lead to demonstrably better scientific understanding.<ref name=alt_woods>{{cite book|last=Woods|first=Philip A.|title=Alternative Education for the 21st Century Philosophies, Approaches, Visions|year=2008|publisher=Palgrave|isbn=978-0-230-60276-2|author2=Glenys J. Woods |page=219|quote="There are unresolved conflicts here, principally between a science education based on "inaccurate science" that leads to better scientific understanding."}}</ref>
The previous sentence already states that Waldorf science education produces students with better understanding of science despite criticism of the curriculum. So, this sentence is reiterating the contradiction, and without seeing the quote in context it's possible OR. Roches ( talk) 22:45, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
Get what published? Or cite what opinion? There were two sentences:
Those appear to say the same thing. I have no opinion at all about Waldorf education, the text just looked like it was making the same point twice. Roches ( talk) 23:15, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
That is a passage which does not make much sense as it stands, even with the additional explanation offered in the above comment, and needs to be clarified by an editor who sufficiently understands the content of all the sources cited in that section, especially [12], for which the abstract is:
Qexigator ( talk) 10:17, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
Alexbrn replaced a direct quotation with an inaccurate summary, claiming that this was done to ensure fidelity to the original. The two versions are:
I suggest we return to the direct quotation. The edited (2nd) version is incredibly far from the source. HGilbert ( talk) 19:37, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
References
Year6
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).So I would suggest:
Anthroposophy, the spiritual foundation of the Waldorf approach, underpins the primary pedagogical goals of enabling the child:
A very long time ago I painstakingly used Bo Dahlin and Martin Ashley's reviews of Jelinek & Sun as a way to incorporate Jelinek & Sun's criticisms of the science curriculum. As some of you may remember, the wikipedia issue is that Jelinek's paper is a primary source for his findings and it has never been peer reviewed. Editors must use reliable secondary sources as the basis for their editing. So that is what I did and then somewhere along the line the whole affair got shortened. I think that it is important that the Waldorf students and the public school students were evaluated through the TIMMS test of scientific understanding. That is an international and validated measure. The Waldorf students outscored the public school students in one area and had statistically similar scores on another section. Jelinek's conclusions about the curriculum are paradoxical only when this information is included. I can re-write it again but I'd rather not. I should mention that I summarize and synthesize research in academic articles IRL. Jellypear ( talk) 18:14, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
In the name of consistency: How, in the article, do we get to The spiritual foundation of the Waldorf approach, Anthroposophy, underpins its primary pedagogical goals..., [14] given that the article begins: Waldorf (Steiner) education is a humanistic approach to pedagogy based on the educational philosophy of the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy.- which concurs with the passage in 'Spirituality' section: Tom Stehlik places Waldorf education in a humanistic tradition, and contrasts its philosophically grounded approach to "value-neutral" secular state schooling systems.? I may have missed something. Qexigator ( talk) 07:44, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
We've got Hgilbert reverting [15] text in this article in which he has a FCOI: this ia against the recommendation of our guidelines and so is not good, especially when the wider community has identified a promotional tinge to this article which needs correction. Probably best if the lede summarizes the article properly, is in WP:SYNC with the articles it Wikilinks to, and - for a controversial topic - is supported by actual references rather than being brochure-style text without citation. Alexbrn ( talk) 18:43, 12 September 2015 (UTC)