Waldorf education has been around for a long time. But if you read the newspapers you won’t find a mention of it in the NY Times very often. If you do find a it mentioned, the comments are usually incredulous or at least lukewarm in there appraisal of the philosophies and educational practices.
Waldorf education was begun in Germany in the beginning of the 20th century at the waldorf factory. Mr. Waldorf was a successful German business man who wanted to provide a decent grade school for his employees children. He founded the first Waldorf school with the help of teachers inspired by the teachings of Rudolf Steiner.
Steiner was a spiritual theorist who believed that it was possible to apply scientific principals to an internal investigation of the spiritual world. A brilliant man his ideas caused a renascence in physical application of spiritual principals in multiple fields including politics, arts, education, agriculture (biodynamic) and retirement communities. Each of these separate fields have developed over the past hundred years until today where there common roots remain hidden for many people.
In education Steiner asked the question – how does the soul grow in the body over the first 21 years of life and what form of education would support the full growth of soul in to the body of a child? (My words not his.) He rejected and current Waldorf schools still reject the philosophy that the mind should be the primary target of a grade school education and he instead set about creating a community of students and staff that worked together to help children have a full experience of childhood.
Some adults are turned off by the repetitive nature of the Waldorf classes, but grade school children find the repetition soothing and a very safe environment. Most of all I have found that Waldorf children make the best listeners – I can perform almost any level of complexity material for a waldorf audience and they will take it in with relish while your average pubic school audience would have been talking in there seats with out my simple connection and constant management.
On visiting a Waldorf school as a dyslexic person the first thing I noticed is that Waldorf school does not punish the slow reader – most children learn to read by fourth grade with out any pressure in a Waldorf school environment. As some one who learned to read in fourth grade with LOTS of pressure – I would like to tell no pressure is a much better system emotionally speaking. (Said the nail to the hammer.)
Waldorf school are part of the public school system in Germany – but here in the U.S. there ideas are to radical for public acceptance and they remain privet with all the problems associated with private schools. Cost – elitist associations in potential families minds – poorly paid teachers etc…
If you live close to one such school –
Investigate as a possible place for your student to enroll full time.
If your home schooling your LDS or dyslexic child. Waldorf exercises can be very soothing and helpful to integrate the left – right brain stuff that just seems to break down in us – “gifted” individuals.
Good Luck
Eric Wolf
Here is one small piece of the study conducted on Waldorf Graduates...
Comparison of Waldorf and US Population
Declared Majors General US Population (GUSP) vs Waldorf Graduates from 1991–2002
Arts & Humanities GUSP - 14.6% Waldorf Graduates - 39.8%
Social & Behavioral Sciences GUSP - 10.9% Waldorf Graduates - 29.9%
Life Sciences GUSP - 6.2% Waldorf Graduates - 9.9%
Physical Sciences & Math GUSP - 2.0% Waldorf Graduates - 2.8%
Engineering GUSP - 6.4% Waldorf Graduates - 1.8%
Computer & Information Sciences 6.1% Waldorf Graduates - 2.5%
Education GUSP - 7.3% Waldorf Graduates - 2.1%
Business & Management GUSP - 19.3% Waldorf Graduates - 4.6%
Health GUSP - 11.6% Waldorf Graduates - 5.6%
Other Technical & Professional GUSP - 9.7% Waldorf Graduates - 0.4%
Vocational , Technical, & Other GUSP - 5.9% Waldorf Graduates - 0.6%
Showing posts with label Waldorf. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Waldorf. Show all posts
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Remediation Report in 2005
My rewrite of that same remidation report in 2005.
Written by Eric James Wolf, M.S. Education
Remediation Repotr of: Eric James Wolf
Summary
Eric Wolf is a very bright young man who, at the age of fifteen, is struggling with his identity and finding little in school to support his emerging adult selfhood. Eric is a bright, thoughtful, and creative student who demonstrates great capacity for thinking and creatively understanding mathematical, scientific, and historical facts and concepts. (Amazing, really, when you examine the degrading and dehumanizing treatment he has received in the school system.) Eric shows great ability to retain stories, but little or no ability to retain individual lines of poems or plays. Eric is a geographic learner; he can give you volumes of information about the space his classes take place in, but very little about what was covered in lecture.
Eric suffers from an undue enthusiasm for school, given his bad experiences. Like a spouse who returns to an abusive partner, he displays an unhealthy willingness to return to traditional school settings: in particular, Spanish, a class he has now failed three years in a row. Given his age and his ability to feel, where is his teenage rebellion? I fear he may have unrevealed energies that lurk beneath the surface. The emergence of these trapped feelings may harm him or those around him.
Diagnosis
While he is highly intelligent, Eric has difficulty finishing tasks and completing assignments. I believe that Eric, at the age of fifteen, has an impacted colon and an unhealthy diet, both of which contribute to his inability to think straight. In addition, Eric has taken to reading books instead of sleeping, getting only three to four hours of sleep a night. Eric is allergic to cats, carpet lice, and mattress mites; he should be tested for all known allergies in an urban environment.
Eric is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. His freshman year in high school was so stressful that he came close to suicide on several occasions. Every effort must be made to relieve the stress that has built up in his life.
1) Eric needs a regular exercise program.
2) He needs to radically restructure his diet and get enough hydration and sleep.
3) Eric needs a secretary or an organizing coach to organize his paperwork for an hour a week.
4) When Eric writes by hand, he is unable to escape the stress that he remembers from learning to write. This means that while writing a lengthy paper by hand, he is experiencing the same level of anxiety that you might experience skydiving or rappelling off a cliff.
5) Eric has visual difficulties that lead to frequent classical dyslexic spelling mistakes.
6) Eric appears to have internalized his failure in school into a martyr complex.
7) Eric appears to have suffered grievous emotional and psychic damage from his recent experience in a public school setting.
Remediation
1) Eric has expressed interest in fencing, walking, sailing, and canoeing, all sports that are available within the city limits. If he practiced one of them twice a week, he would be in much better shape physically. A pass to the local YMCA gym might also be an option if cost is prohibitive.
2) Regular large amounts of roughage and bulk might be added to Eric's diet. Oatmeal every morning for breakfast might make Eric's bowels more regular, thus removing important toxins from his body. Colonoscopy should be considered, although he would hate it.
3) He could drink at least eight glasses of water a day and sleep for eight hours. Both of these things need to be regulated by his parents.
4) A highly organized peer could be hired to help with his papers.
5) Eric may benefit highly from Waldorf handwriting classes and stress reduction exercises. Another option would be for him to study calligraphy or drawing: any period of intense study with pencil and paper would help refocus his feelings of success around holding a pencil or pen.
6) Eric is classically dyslexic, and it appears that his educational success is running four years behind his peers. In reading and reading comprehension, however, he is far above the norm for his grade level. Just four short years ago, he was reading at a much slower rate then his peers. I have no doubt that given time, he will surpass his peers in knowledge and writing ability because of his own desire to participate in society at large. I would suggest, given the academic failures and stress he experienced in the last year, that he be placed in an environment where he can have some positive life experiences: an art-centered or drama-centered school, or a program that focuses on backpacking, canoeing, or sailing.
7) Eric's insistence that he is capable of succeeding in the traditional school environment borders on psychotic. Is his sacrifice necessary? Isn't some part of learning meant to be fun? Why would any student be forced to take a subject that he is failing for three years in a row? What is the purpose of all this work and this effort? Professional intervention will help him understand that his environment is an artificial one with arbitrary standards. In particular, he could be freed of his desire to attend a traditional school setting. If a language besides English must be studied, then perhaps sign language would be a good option. Sign is a physical and visual language, perfect for a dyslexic person.
8) Interventions are an overused clich, but they are necessary. The adults in Eric's world must intervene to protect him from his schooling. They must force him to seek a different expression of acceptance, and they must explore and research other schooling options that may exist. The adults must ask the uncomfortable questions. What is the value of a traditional education for a non-traditional learner? And how do Eric's previous negative emotional experiences with school create an emotional trap that prevents him from seeing other options?
December 28, 2005
Several very interesting questions arose from writing this report.
I find these questions disturbing, and I hope you will too.
How does our children's happiness get crushed beneath our industrial society's need to regulate and prevent sudden change?
Is it really necessary that children take classes in subjects they will never use outside of an academic setting?
Who decides what subjects define civilization?
If 90% of all communication is nonverbal, what do children who spend must of their lives in highly regimented, physically restrictive classrooms run by a fascist-style government learn about their world?
Why does each generation from the 20th century feel a deep distrust of their elders?
Why does no one describe these feelings before the advent of industrial schooling in the 19th century?
Why do we ask our children to do so much busywork?
Why do we force our children to take tests that label a large percentage of them as failures?
What purpose does school say it serves? What purpose does school really serve?
Does school succeed in its real purpose?
Do learning disabilities exist outside industrial schooling?
What is the relationship between dyslexia and allergies?
What percentage of dyslexic children have allergies?
In countries without vaccinations, does dyslexia exist?
Is dyslexia a product of genetic damage or genetic vulnerabilities to toxemia of the body?
(A genetic response to allergies?)
Written by Eric James Wolf, M.S. Education
Remediation Repotr of: Eric James Wolf
Summary
Eric Wolf is a very bright young man who, at the age of fifteen, is struggling with his identity and finding little in school to support his emerging adult selfhood. Eric is a bright, thoughtful, and creative student who demonstrates great capacity for thinking and creatively understanding mathematical, scientific, and historical facts and concepts. (Amazing, really, when you examine the degrading and dehumanizing treatment he has received in the school system.) Eric shows great ability to retain stories, but little or no ability to retain individual lines of poems or plays. Eric is a geographic learner; he can give you volumes of information about the space his classes take place in, but very little about what was covered in lecture.
Eric suffers from an undue enthusiasm for school, given his bad experiences. Like a spouse who returns to an abusive partner, he displays an unhealthy willingness to return to traditional school settings: in particular, Spanish, a class he has now failed three years in a row. Given his age and his ability to feel, where is his teenage rebellion? I fear he may have unrevealed energies that lurk beneath the surface. The emergence of these trapped feelings may harm him or those around him.
Diagnosis
While he is highly intelligent, Eric has difficulty finishing tasks and completing assignments. I believe that Eric, at the age of fifteen, has an impacted colon and an unhealthy diet, both of which contribute to his inability to think straight. In addition, Eric has taken to reading books instead of sleeping, getting only three to four hours of sleep a night. Eric is allergic to cats, carpet lice, and mattress mites; he should be tested for all known allergies in an urban environment.
Eric is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. His freshman year in high school was so stressful that he came close to suicide on several occasions. Every effort must be made to relieve the stress that has built up in his life.
1) Eric needs a regular exercise program.
2) He needs to radically restructure his diet and get enough hydration and sleep.
3) Eric needs a secretary or an organizing coach to organize his paperwork for an hour a week.
4) When Eric writes by hand, he is unable to escape the stress that he remembers from learning to write. This means that while writing a lengthy paper by hand, he is experiencing the same level of anxiety that you might experience skydiving or rappelling off a cliff.
5) Eric has visual difficulties that lead to frequent classical dyslexic spelling mistakes.
6) Eric appears to have internalized his failure in school into a martyr complex.
7) Eric appears to have suffered grievous emotional and psychic damage from his recent experience in a public school setting.
Remediation
1) Eric has expressed interest in fencing, walking, sailing, and canoeing, all sports that are available within the city limits. If he practiced one of them twice a week, he would be in much better shape physically. A pass to the local YMCA gym might also be an option if cost is prohibitive.
2) Regular large amounts of roughage and bulk might be added to Eric's diet. Oatmeal every morning for breakfast might make Eric's bowels more regular, thus removing important toxins from his body. Colonoscopy should be considered, although he would hate it.
3) He could drink at least eight glasses of water a day and sleep for eight hours. Both of these things need to be regulated by his parents.
4) A highly organized peer could be hired to help with his papers.
5) Eric may benefit highly from Waldorf handwriting classes and stress reduction exercises. Another option would be for him to study calligraphy or drawing: any period of intense study with pencil and paper would help refocus his feelings of success around holding a pencil or pen.
6) Eric is classically dyslexic, and it appears that his educational success is running four years behind his peers. In reading and reading comprehension, however, he is far above the norm for his grade level. Just four short years ago, he was reading at a much slower rate then his peers. I have no doubt that given time, he will surpass his peers in knowledge and writing ability because of his own desire to participate in society at large. I would suggest, given the academic failures and stress he experienced in the last year, that he be placed in an environment where he can have some positive life experiences: an art-centered or drama-centered school, or a program that focuses on backpacking, canoeing, or sailing.
7) Eric's insistence that he is capable of succeeding in the traditional school environment borders on psychotic. Is his sacrifice necessary? Isn't some part of learning meant to be fun? Why would any student be forced to take a subject that he is failing for three years in a row? What is the purpose of all this work and this effort? Professional intervention will help him understand that his environment is an artificial one with arbitrary standards. In particular, he could be freed of his desire to attend a traditional school setting. If a language besides English must be studied, then perhaps sign language would be a good option. Sign is a physical and visual language, perfect for a dyslexic person.
8) Interventions are an overused clich, but they are necessary. The adults in Eric's world must intervene to protect him from his schooling. They must force him to seek a different expression of acceptance, and they must explore and research other schooling options that may exist. The adults must ask the uncomfortable questions. What is the value of a traditional education for a non-traditional learner? And how do Eric's previous negative emotional experiences with school create an emotional trap that prevents him from seeing other options?
December 28, 2005
Several very interesting questions arose from writing this report.
I find these questions disturbing, and I hope you will too.
How does our children's happiness get crushed beneath our industrial society's need to regulate and prevent sudden change?
Is it really necessary that children take classes in subjects they will never use outside of an academic setting?
Who decides what subjects define civilization?
If 90% of all communication is nonverbal, what do children who spend must of their lives in highly regimented, physically restrictive classrooms run by a fascist-style government learn about their world?
Why does each generation from the 20th century feel a deep distrust of their elders?
Why does no one describe these feelings before the advent of industrial schooling in the 19th century?
Why do we ask our children to do so much busywork?
Why do we force our children to take tests that label a large percentage of them as failures?
What purpose does school say it serves? What purpose does school really serve?
Does school succeed in its real purpose?
Do learning disabilities exist outside industrial schooling?
What is the relationship between dyslexia and allergies?
What percentage of dyslexic children have allergies?
In countries without vaccinations, does dyslexia exist?
Is dyslexia a product of genetic damage or genetic vulnerabilities to toxemia of the body?
(A genetic response to allergies?)
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