Thanks Barbara - the most informative document I found from your links was
this: - http://www.ecswe.org/wren/html/_private/seven_myths.pdf
I started reading about the methodology the waldorf-steiner employs and I
started wondering along the lines of these " myths"
*The questions helped to make an assessment of what the authors call “seven
myths about
Waldorf Education”, detailing and expanding the doubts referred to in
section 1. These
myths are as follows:
1. Waldorf graduates are not able to pass the admission examinations to
Brazilian
colleges and universities
2. They are not admitted to first-rank colleges and universities;
3. Once accepted by a good college or university, they are not able to
finish their
course;
4. Most Waldorf graduates become artists;
5. Waldorf Education does not prepare its students for the job market;
6. It does not prepare its students to be professionally competitive;
7. Waldorf is a religious education.
*
Even after reading the document I am still concerned about : -
*Parents who decide to send their children to a Waldorf school know that
they are taking a
courageous step to be “different”. The decision is not easy, because Waldorf
Education
really presents many differences in comparison with other teaching methods.
Here are some
of the most obvious ones:
- No text books are used – students create their own;
- There are no tests and no exams;
- There is no failing of a grade;
- Reading and writing begin only in first grade and may take a long time to
learn;
- All students remain grouped together from the first to the last (twelfth)
grade (with
occasional exceptions due to students entering or leaving the school);
- There is a teacher, called a “class teacher”, who takes a class in grade
1 and ideally
stays with the class until grade 8, teaching all the main subjects:
Mathematics,
History, Geography, the native language and sciences;
- These main subjects are taught in “main lessons”, in daily classes which
run over
three or four weeks;
- Ideally, students learn sciences such as Physics, Biology, Chemistry and
Geology
using the so-called “Goethean phenomenological principle” – this means that
first
of all they intensely experience and describe the related phenomena, and
only later
come to learn and elaborate intellectual concepts about them;
- Arts have the same importance and receive the same attention as all other
school
subjects; this means that they are not organized as extra classes or
elective subjects;
they include form-drawing, sketching, painting, sculpture, pottery, weaving,
music,
drama and handicrafts; furthermore, in the elementary and middle schools
(grades
1- 8) every subject is taught in an artistic way;
- Waldorf Education is based on the Anthroposophical concept and
understanding of
the human being developed by Rudolf Steiner at the beginning of the 20th
century,
particularly with regard to concepts involving the processes of child and
adolescent
development. The content of each school subject and the way the subject is
taught
follow specific concepts about the characteristics of each age level.
*
I get the feeling that Leigh Blackhall would have endorsed the Waldorf-
Steiner approach .:)
*
*
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