a David Preiss wrote:
And the question that complements this one is whether schools have the human and intellectual resources (not to say financial resources or time available) to be able to indulge in critical thinking... and not to turn their work in just blind reduction of complexity.David still looking for the holy grail On Jan 10, 2010, at 9:30 PM, Andy Blunden wrote:Yes, and one of the other devil-and-the-deep-blue-sea questions is:On the one hand, a practice organized around the rigid application of a once-good idea which is way outside of the ethos of everyday life (sectarianism);On the other hand, the norms of the "really existing democracy" which is the taken-for-granted normality.To stand against the stream usually means to cling tightly to an eccentric idea, and hold on no matter what anyone else thinks or does.That's why I think the question raised by Jay is so important - how to enter into reality critically?Andy David Preiss wrote:Taking into consideration all the posts on this thread, it seems that finding a school that balances the development of higher psychological processes, consideration of teachers and students' humanity and its privileged role as cultural transmitters / renovators is more difficult than finding the holy grail. Probably, a Waldorf-life school is as distant from what many of us here may consider a reasonable school as the more conventional schools we commonly criticize are, with all their unidimensional emphasis on overachievement, ranking / discrimination of students and encapsulated knowledge. And that for those of us that have the cursed "privilege" or the illusion of choice: most of the parents in the world are forced to send their kids to horrible places where even raising this question is out of place and where concerns of everyday survival rank first in the list of priorities.Alas! David On Jan 10, 2010, at 1:00 PM, Leif Strandberg wrote:I remember the first time I visited a Waldorf school in Sweden. It was 1978, and I was impressed of the calm atmosphere, the dancing (eurytmi) the painting (wet in wet), their interconnectedness with environment, vegetarian food, alternative medicine, water cleaning etcetera.When I visited this particular school (it is the most famous one here in Sweden, outside the town Soedertaelje, founded 1949, and has been supported, and with regular inspection, since then) last year, more than 30 years after my first impressions, I saw exactly the same thing (!) They were doing the same things!so, the creativity in Waldorf schools must have some limits ;-)I am not saying that these schools are bad for children - but from a CHAT-perspective.... let's say... we have at least a lot to talk aboutThey are dedicated to greek ideas about temperaments, Goethe and Rosseau... and the natural childI prefer Villon, Rabelais, Voltaire and Diderot.... and Vygotsky... and cultural-historical children performing together, doing what's not yet hereYou can watch some pictures of their beautiful architecture on: http://www.antroposofi.info/jaerna/ Leif - not so waldorfian - and absolutely not a Steinerian and nowadays not even a vegetarian 10 jan 2010 kl. 14.18 skrev arthur@fi.uu.nl:A Dutch perspective on your question Andy: Unlike in the USA and UK, Steiner schools are subsidized by the Dutchgovernment, just as Montessori, Jenaplan, Kees Boeke, Dalton etc. Hencethey fall under regular inspection. As a kid I attended a very goodSteiner school (7-12 yrs), which worked for me, for several reasons alsomentioned by others (using head, heart & hands, safe environment, noattainment pressure, much attention for nature, creativity etc). But as with all schools, there are very good and very bad ones in our country.Steiner is indeed off mainstream, yet it is interesting how influentialhis anthroposophy has been in several areas of life: - health care (there are anthroposophic doctors and medicine) - organic food (biologisch-dynamisch with strict rules for growing and treating the soil)- finance (a Dutch bank, Triodos, based its principles on anthroposophy,and was lately awarded as the most sustainable bank here). - and of course educationA PhD student from Groningen University made a comparison of children's play in regular and Steiner schools. Another PhD student discovered poor results for maths in secondary education but a positive attitude towardslearning (Hilde Steenbergen).Btw, I think Steiner's early work in philosophy - much less contentious than his later work - might be interesting to anyone interested in Hegel, Marx etc from a 1900 perspective (he had a PhD in philosophy). He had a very non-materialistic interpretation of Hegel etc. I don't know his workon Goethe very well. ArthurI have been researching Goethe and his scientific ideas, and after a long time I came across a book which tells in detail of how his ideas originated and explains them very clearly and convincingly. The point I am interested in of course is the Urphaenomen, a.k.a., unit of analysis, and as Goethe and Davydov both insist, a unit of analysis which is given to the senses. The author of the book is *Rudolph Steiner*, the same Rudolph Steiner who started up Steiner Schools. I can get an idea of his life and work from Wikipedia and so on, and it certainly is way off the mainstream, if I could put it that way. However, I would be interested in a brief response from xmca-ers on the success or otherwise of his schools. Andy --------------------------------------------------------------------------Hegel Summer School http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/seminars/hss10.htm Hegel, Goethe and the Planet: 13 February 2010. _______________________________________________ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca_______________________________________________ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca_______________________________________________ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmcaDavid Preiss http://web.mac.com/ddpreiss/ _______________________________________________ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hegel Summer School http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/seminars/hss10.htm Hegel, Goethe and the Planet: 13 February 2010. _______________________________________________ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmcaDavid Preiss http://web.mac.com/ddpreiss/
-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hegel Summer School http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/seminars/hss10.htm Hegel, Goethe and the Planet: 13 February 2010. _______________________________________________ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca