This discussion is now closed.

Check out other Related discussions

Steiner schools

Ok, I was reading the thread about 90's childhood and the bit that said kids don't use their imagination and i totally have to agree. My mum is a teacher in a mainstream school and they spend so much money on toy this and toy that but in a steiner school that i have been visiting they have very few actual toys, they are happy with an sheet of fabric and few boxes. It is amazing to watch these 21st century kids who you'd expect to want all the latest gadgets and slutty dolls, playing the way we used to with baby dolls and using their imaginations. Steiner school doesn't have any tv and the parents are encouraged to not let children watch tv at home, but of course that is not monitered. I just wanted to know has anyone else on here visited or been to a steiner school and what are your veiws on steiner schools?

Reply 1

ellabella

i know some kids at a steiner school and i really agree with the education method - these kids are alllowed to have a childhood rather than taking SATs and learning to read too quickly

like, class one plants the wheat (and learns about how plants grow, and maths as they plant it)
class 2 digs up the wheat
class 3 shells it
class 4 grinds it up
class 5 makes bread with it
class 6 makes jam for the bread, and serves it to class 1

BUT i don;t agree with all the strict rules on TV and computers and video games. the kids i know are allowed all these things but when the parents of other kids come round they try to hide it! some of the parents are so strict that their kids wouldn;t be able to come round and play anymore if they knew about all the technology! :frown:

Reply 2

soup_dragon87

The Steinerites I know are a cool bunch. They're more laid back but also more able in some ways. They're fun too.

What's the difference between Steiner and Montesori?

Reply 3

hippieglitter

I don't know the exact difference between Steiner and Montesory but the teachers can't stress enough that Steiner and Montesory are not similar at all.

Reply 4

Angelil

According to our good friend wikipedia:

(put under a spoiler for length - don't worry, it's not the whole article!) Steiner/Waldorf schools

Spoiler

I think that on the surface it sounds OK - emphasis on creativity, letting children learn at their own pace, early teaching of foreign languages etc etc. However, I think that to an extent it sounds a bit too passive - a child will rarely just magically start reading, and yet they seem to expect that a child will start to read and add up when they're 'ready'. Something like this surely has to be at least kick-started, otherwise the danger is that they may end up behind other children of the same age. Plus, I think the idea of the four humours is outdated - I fail to see the point of taking Ancient Greek medicine as gospel. And human life is competitive - no system of education should attempt to deny this fact.

Now, Montessori:

Spoiler

To me, the Montessori method sounds better in terms of constructive criticism and language learning without losing the emphasis on creativity. Critics have pointed out that Montessori schools don't assign homework - whether you see this as a good or bad thing, though, depends on your point of view. At the moment I can't see any glaring problems with Montessori education, but then again I'm no expert. I have been educated in neither of these systems, so it could be that I'm way off the mark.
If I was to put my child into either of these systems it would likely be the Montessori one; and it would have to be right for the child. I wouldn't just put them into this system without thinking about it. It sounds like both systems might be good for early years teaching (age 3-5), but I'd be hesitant to leave a child in these systems beyond that.
If I've got anything wrong here then someone please correct me :smile:

Reply 5

Paeony

I'm not an expert on either kind of school, but I believe that true Montessori is a lot more structured than Steiner. In Montessori there's a lot of emphasis on an ordered, calm environment, where learning materials are easily accessible to children. Montessori places a lot of emphasis on children developing concentration, and it's actually a very structured environment, where the teacher acts as a guide to the child's learning through experience. I *think* that in Montessori there's a lot of emphasis on co-operation and social skills too. I don't know much about Steiner at all but I believe that it's a much more 'free' way of educating children.

Reply 6

sweet_fluffy_nuke

Both sound rather slow and alternative.
They would be good for brilliant children: they do well anywhere.
And for those who are really struggling with issues in their lives.

However, I think that a the vast majority of average and above average kids would be better served by a good public school.

Reply 7

xXMessedUpXx

is that actually a uk thing? cos i've never heard of it before :s:

Reply 8

Angelil

It originated in Europe but there are plenty of schools in the UK like this.

Seriously, you've never heard of them?! Wow.

Reply 9

Paeony

There are lots of schools in the UK that call themselves Montessori and Steiner-Waldorf, but very few that actually are completely so. This is particularly true for Montessori - most 'Montessori' schools have just one or two Montessori trained teachers, and adopt some of the methods and equipment, but you couldn't call them 'true' Montessori schools. Both Montessori and Steiner and very 'teacher-intensive' methods, and require a lot of specialist equipment that is very expensive, so most places can't adopt the methods fully. There is a growing interest in these methods in home-schooling though.

Reply 10

xXMessedUpXx

Paeony

the only schools i know of are bog standard ones :p:

Reply 11

Paeony

xXMessedUpXx

the only schools i know of are bog standard ones :p:

Lol

These kinds of schools are usually private, although there is a primary school in Gorton, a really bad part of Manchester, that's recently adopted Montessori methods and had some really good results with it.

Reply 12

ellabella

my aunt used to run a montessori nursery, so i went there

it was fun... but i dont remember much else. and i'm certainly not disadvantaged now...

Reply 13

hippieglitter

Having been helping out in a steiner school for two weeks now i am pretty sure i would send my child to a steiner school til the age of 11 i love the system and can see how it works and the older children are not behind in anyway for entering a state school.

Reply 14

eenie_pod

totally agree....im in my last years at a steiner school and it's not hard to see the difference between A level students from a steiner school and those from a state school. state schools arent all bad but the tendency to spoon-feed students and desperate reliance on exam results does not exist in a steiner school.........you're taught to think for yourself and out of the box.

Reply 15

austinwho

Ok I went to a Steiner School and I'm pretty torn on it.

My one is the only state funded Steiner in the country - the Hereford Steiner Academy, although it was only state funded for the last year of my education there.

I'll start with the positive side of Steiner Education. The young children are raised without pressures and enjoying their learning. They develop a good understanding and are generally well sheltered while also learning good creative skills. They are approcable and genrally kind and undestaning, although this is not always the case.

That was just a summary, the negatives, I am afraid, far outweigh the positives though and becacme increasingly apparent the further up the school i went.

For starters, I was taught German and French from the offing and when French was dropped due to a lack of teachers in class 8 (year 9) we took up Spanish. What do I have to show for these skills? I have HALF of an OCN. An OCN is basically a poor GCSE equivalent based on project work instead of exams. OCN is to GCSE kind of what Btec is to A-level except no one has heard of them. On top of this my language skills themselves are dreadful. Despite ten (yes TEN) years of learning German my friend who took it for 3 or so years at a state school is far more competent than me AND is qualified to take it at A level.

Now, I do not mean to sound full of my self, but at a young age when I went to a state primary school (they start a year earlier than Steiner) for a year I was one of the best in my year and of enormous potential. One of the other people who was on a similar level to me is now headed for Oxford University, having taken German A level at school she was so good, and Spanish and French. Why such a difference in achievment between two so evenly matched? Education.

By the way, we only did three GCSE's at school: the two Englishes and Maths.

Secondly, the sciences. I was in love with science at primary school. When I went to Steiner, we didn't even do it. Our first foray into science was class 5 (year 6!!!) when we did some biology. This was gradually stepped up until we eventually completed...1/4 of an OCN in biology and chemistry with our slightly crazy Swedish science teacher. I have one friend who is attempting physics A level and is finding the work to catch up huge because we basically never even touched on it. There are two from my small class of 19 that are determined to become doctors. Problem? They are both getting C grades at Chemistry and Bilogy due to the lack of grounding in the subjects. One of them is incredibly hard working so it can hardly be put down to that!

Sports. My school (although some are different) didn't allow football. While I was not particularly talented I was OBSESSED with it when I was little. Each morning they gave us time to write down thoughts and memories in a diary. Looking through mine the other day it is full of football scores, football discussion, etc. When I played I was at my utmost happiest and I was prepared, no matter what my academic potential, to work everyday to make it in football. All ambition was however, squashed ou of me and what is more, for a school that sells itself as making happier students, surely taking away something that makes so many of the students so much happier is plainly ridiculous.

Our first and only taste of competetive sport came in class 9 (year 10) when we played in the basketball tournament of the county. We had never played in such a tournament and were nervous and up against the year above. They squeezed by us by 3 points and eventually our group came down to one game - us against the physical school who bullies. Now I was far from the best in the year at basket ball but I was, at the very least, competent and reasonably tall but I was dropped for this game so that a bunch of people who couldnt care less about it and were utterly hopeless at it. I watched from the sidelines as we were, once again, unfortunate to go down by 3 points. This one taste of competition had been taken away from me once again, but I was only grateful that those who were truly passionate about the sport were not dropped.

The english teaching and the maths teaching was surprisingly competent. Having said that, most of the content of the language paper was taught to us in the week preceding the exam as the teacher (a crazy canadian woman who was allegedly very experienced but was known to storm out of them class crying if people talked in her desperately boring lessons) because she had spent most of our time in the two years she taught us reading poem after poem.

In maths, we were taught abysmally actually, until the last year when we recieved state funding and suddenly we got a competent teacher. Yes he was Czech and some students struggled to understand his accent, but for the first time we had a teacher who I could find stimulating and who didn't, to use that old state school cliche, 'spoon feed' us work like the other teachers did!

It has also been said that the school helps people in difficult circumstances. Well this, I'm afraid is also a myth. One of my friends was saved by the Steiner School. He came to the school depressed and with long hair shielding his face. He had been bullied at his old school for being stupid. In fact, while he is heavily dyspraxic and dyslexic he is one of the cleverest people I know. Apart from this, however, there are three cases while I was at school where people in similar situations came and went and the school was utterly at a loss of what to do. One boy, who i remember as being very odd and out of place was given totally insufficient and learning support and left, still a shell of what he should have been. The same guy sits next to me in geography A level classes and is as confident and intelligent as can be.

The issue of bullying is also one which is kept mighty quiet by the school. A kid was in my class all through school and had anger problems. He was baited non stop and frequently got into fights after being bullied. There is also the normal school 'hierarchy system' with the cool kids dominating those below them and, as one of the ones who for many years was in the lower echelon I can tell you, making them feel dreadful.

Art teaching is another thing which is massively over stated. You may be, as lots ofpeople are, that the Steiner School is an arts based school. This is not the case. After my ten years I can tell you, we did the same pictures year on year (brown leaves in autumn...green leaves in spring...oooh...always accmopanied by a poem) and yet were never told how to draw, simply that me must do it. In class 10, for the first time!!!, we had an actual art teacher, well, if you can call her that. She was an Australian woman who was good at art and had had kids at the school, whether she was qualififed or not I have no idea. I managed to learn nothing at all off her in my 9 or so months of lessons as, by this point I had grown so resentful of the school I did as little work as possible in lessons that I did not consider to be important to my sixth form education.

The work we did was not marked with grades until class 7. When it was my work, I seem to remember, came to light as suddenly I had something to work towards! When I recieved my grade and comments back, however, I was to be dissappointed. What do you think let me down? My writing? My essays? My spelling and grammar? Certainly not. In fact my spelling and grammar, and that of several other students' was better than our main teacher at the time as she was dyslexic and an ex hippy who I do not doubt for a moment smoked an awful lot of drugs when she was younger. What actually got my work marked down was my minimalistic decorations. While others around me drew elaborate borders and colourful pictures, I felt that a coloured line and and black and white sketch would suffice. Yet this became an dongoing theme and, the more it happened the more resentful I became and the less effort I put in.

I do believe that, if GCSE's were offered in foreign languages, sciences and other topics that we actually study, such as RE, the whole system would gain an element of focus. What was most frustrating was the whole lack of focus and lack of ambition. With a little bit more drive I am sure that I could have been a much better student than I am now and quite possibly an Oxbridge candidate as well!

I could go on but I must admit, I am becoming rather frazzled with all this typing!!! I know this is seriously long but I just think people should be aware of a lot of the pit falls of Steiner. I think there is a serious danger that talent can be wasted as I believe it was in my case. I was naturally gifted at languages and sciences and an able athlete who was given such a tiny amount to aim for I felt like a dog trying to jump through a pin hole!

Hope this is interesting to people and I am sorry but I simply cannot be bothered to read through it so beware the typos etc.

Reply 16

rugbyladosc

i aint gonna read that but u must be a hippy haha!

Reply 17

austinwho

Oh and I didn't even mention that fact that no matter how many times I was told my lack of GCSE's would be irrelavent once I did my A level I am now struggling to find a top ranked uni that does not set too much store by GCSE's!