David Albert

> I am very surprised
> to see Pat Montgomery lined up as a key note speaker, because her
> philosophy
> of relaxed, child-led learning is in direct contrast to the
> conservative
> Waldorf approach of teacher as repository of knowledge and culture.
> Agaf
> Dancy heatedly refuted student initiated learning in the elementary
> years at
> the first WE conference, claiming the young child is not old enough or
> wise
> enough to know what is available for him to learn so he needs a
> teacher to
> expose him to the world.

I have always learned from reading and thinking about Steiner and his
approaches; but my limited experience of Waldorf Schools has always been
disappointing -- all of the trappings of Steiner, but with little of the
inner reasoning, nor encompassing the perhaps unsettling truth that
Steiner learned from children much more than they learned from him. The
curriculum of the Waldorf schools I have seen is different (and in good
ways) from your run-of-the-mill public school, but in the strictures
placed upon children by even having a curriculum (one-size-fits-all)
approach, it is profoundly similar to public education. I honestly
don't think Steiner would have approved, at least of what I have seen.

> I strongly feel that all of the debate over homeschooling in the
> elementary
> and secondary years is so misguided; we should all really be working
> for
> universal higher education. The world would be a vastly different
> place if
> everyone could go to college/grad school and study and do what they
> want to
> do, and contribute their God-given gifts towards a better world.
>

What is happening in colleges and grad schools these days (I'm perhaps
overgeneralizing) is also so disheartening. First of all, they must
deal with the learning diseases kids coming out of public education
bring with them. Next, the dumbing down of liberal education for the
purpose of providing a few required courses so the students can get on
with the real business of careering. Finally, so much of its has become
a business in and of itself that sometimes it almost seems that the fact
that learning is supposed to take place there is almost an afterthought.

Oh, enough of that. Let us know how your experiment with the "open"
public school works out!

David