A Dutch perspective on your question Andy:
Unlike in the USA and UK, Steiner schools are subsidized by the Dutch
government, just as Montessori, Jenaplan, Kees Boeke, Dalton etc.
Hence
they fall under regular inspection. As a kid I attended a very good
Steiner school (7-12 yrs), which worked for me, for several reasons
also
mentioned by others (using head, heart & hands, safe environment, no
attainment 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
influential
his 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 education
A 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
towards
learning (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 work
on Goethe very well.
Arthur
I 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.
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