quacks – Page 2 – The Quackometer Blog

What the Steiner Waldorf School Movement did not want you to read.

14th June, 2013 140

Earlier this month, Grégoire Perra was finally acquitted in a French court after the Federation of Waldorf Steiner Schools in France decided to sue Grégoire Perra, a former Steiner teacher, for publishing a critique of the schools and the anthroposophy movement. The trial appears to have collapsed as the court accepted that the account was not written out of malice but as an honest examination of the Steiner School system. It also [read more…]

Steiner Schools, Vaccination and Measles Outbreaks

26th April, 2013 182

The UK is currently experiencing outbreaks of measles. Many children have been hospitalised and there has been one suspected death. This is an entirely preventable situation and would not be happening if there were sufficient levels of MMR uptake. However, as I discussed in my last article levels of vaccination can vary enormously in the space of just a few miles. To blame the media and their positive reporting of [read more…]

Steiner Academy Exeter: Misleading Choices

28th March, 2013 292

Once again, we see a proposed new state-funded Steiner School failing to be open about the occult nature of its philosophy and its spiritual goals. The new Free School, the Steiner Academy Exeter, is confident it will be given approval to open this Autumn as a publicly funded school, and so is opening a formal admissions window on the 1st of April. To this end, it has taken several full [read more…]

Bill Roache, Karma, Reincarnation and Steiner Schools.

19th March, 2013 242

Watching the lunchtime news, it would appear that actor Bill Roache, who has played Ken Barlow in Coronation Street for over 50 years, has been making comments about how sexual abuse victims have brought their problems on themselves as “everything that happens to us has been a result of what we have been in previous lives”. Why would Roache hold such views? The answers lie in his education and upbringing. [read more…]

Biodynamic Farming: “A rather magnificent cow-dung ice cream cone”

15th February, 2013 144

More ill-considered tosh from our national broadcaster. This time it’s biodynamic farming. Sitting out on the bonkers fringes of the organic farming movement squats another of Rudolph Steiner’s bastard offspring birthed at a lecture series in 1924. [Follow the link and see what passes for research in some areas of social science. You can tell it’s ‘science’ cos it’s got numbers and some Σ symbols. Maths-tastic!] Among its principles are planting schemes [read more…]

Steiner Academy Bristol, A Challenge: Be Open With Parents

8th January, 2013 252

The proposed Steiner School in Bristol was reported yesterday to have attracted ‘huge interest’ from prospective parents. They say 850 people have expressed an interest in joining the school when it is finally given government money to go ahead. If you go to their web site, perhaps you can see why. Their video depicts a school full of music, crafts and caring teachers. What is not to like? Such things [read more…]

Tory Free Schools Plot to Spin Away the Racism of Steiner Schools.

7th January, 2013 33

Last year, I wrote to my local MP, Lib Dem Tessa Munt, to raise concerns that the nearby opening of a state funded Steiner School raised a number of issues. Most importantly, that Steiner Schools are not open about the religious and occult nature of their philosophy and that this philosophy is based on an abhorrent racist view of human spirituality. Furthermore, children are likely to be exposed to pseudoscience, hidden spiritual [read more…]

Steiner Schools Criticise Mainstream Schools’ stance on ‘Father Christmas’

17th December, 2012 20

A spokesperson for the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship in the UK has today warned that mainstream schools could be covertly teaching occult and mystical philosophies to school children. Trevor Teflon, a Steiner School headmaster said, “We are worried that the seasonal and mythical character of ‘Father Christmas’, whilst appearing harmless and fun, is being used to indoctrinate children with spiritual concepts.” At the heart of the Steiner teachers’ concerns is that children, [read more…]

How Steiner Schools Justify their Occult Pedagogy.

27th November, 2012 18

Rudolf Steiner was very clear to his teachers. Young children were incapable of abstract reasoning until they were 14 and their “astral body” had incarnated. Learning to read was bad for a child’s development until adult teeth had appeared and the “etheric body” had incarnated. Early years teaching was more about helping children to remember their existence in previous lives than teaching them anything. What they actually do, such as art using [read more…]

The BBC Report on Frome Steiner Academy

23rd November, 2012 95

My criticisms of Steiner Schools have focused mainly on how they avoid telling parents an authorities about the occult nature of their philosophy. Indeed, Rudolf Steiner was very clear to his teachers about how they should mislead and obfuscate when enquiries were made into their beliefs and intentions. It is therefore illuminating to see BBC South West ask some difficult questions of the new Head Teacher at the state funded Frome [read more…]