Talk:Waldorf education

The Arbitration Committee has placed this article on probation. Editors of this are expected to remove all original research and other unverifiable information, including all controversial information sourced in Anthroposophy related publications. It is anticipated that this process may result in deletion or merger of some articles due to failure of verification by third party peer reviewed sources. If it is found, upon review by the Arbitration Committee, that any of the principals in this arbitration continue to edit in an inappropriate and disruptive way editing restrictions may be imposed. Review may be at the initiative of any member of the Arbitration Committee on their own motion or upon petition by any user to them. For further information see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Waldorf education. For the arbitration committee, Thatcher131 23:52, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Notice: Pete K is indefinitely banned from editing this article.

The user specified has been banned by the Arbitration committee from editing this article. Posted by Penwhale for the Arbitration committee. See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Waldorf education/Review.

Suggestion

" Early use of antibiotics and fever reducers, along with the measles, mumps and rubella vaccination were also associated with increased risks of several allergic symptoms and doctor's diagnoses."!!! It is an argument for the schools and the anthroposofic movement? don't we need a better source for such statement?(rather than a science magazine) Don't we have enough scientific evidence with much better sourcing to justify, recommend and even mandate MMR vaccination? Do we have enough evidence to imply that Waldorf schools are "healthier" than the average school ( adjusted for the $/student)? Isn't it more epidemiologically accurate to imply that the average Waldorf student has a better family income than the average inner city student, and that income imply in better living conditions and lower allergic phenomena?( as I understand we do have good quality data for the last statement). Please omit the section. it is a fallacy, and does little to advance the "Waldorf" cause. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.71.0.149 (talk • contribs)

Income and other socio-economic factors were taken into account in the study. hgilbert (talk) 12:35, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Paradox of pedagogy

In the section on Anthroposophy's role, User:121.217.12.37 added Ullrich's valuable critical question; Ullrich answers this in a differentiated way, essentially suggesting that Waldorf education is more strongly rooted in Steiner's sound pedagogical principles than in his dubious esoteric philosophy. I've tried to reflect this differentiated stance here, but please help! (The article cited is available here). hgilbert (talk) 14:33, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

a bunch of stuff under studies

User Wfsf added a bunch of material under studies (specifically relating to Gidley's work). Since some of the study's were funded by the Rudolf Steiner Schools Association of Australia those might fall outside the guidelines from ArbComm on article probation (specifically the use of sources that are not peer reviewed). I commented them out, if folks disagree go ahead and 'uncomment' them. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 01:07, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

That would make sense if the sources were not peer-reviewed. As they were published in peer-reviewed journals, however, I don't see how a ruling on non peer-reviewed material applies. I have thus restored them. (Gidley is also a recognized researcher in her field of education.) hgilbert (talk) 14:53, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

That's fine. I know Gidley is ok in a general way, but was concerned about the stuff paid for by the Rudolf Steiner Schools Association of Australia, and didn't have time to really look at it yesterday. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 15:48, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

major balance issue

I read through the whole article, and did not find any explicit criticism of the Steiner school system, despite it being heavily criticised by the mainstream. Surely this article should at least reference public opinion. It reads like it was written by their marketing department Npmontgomery (talk) 10:36, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

The article cites nothing but mainstream sources. And I'm not sure what you mean by "public opinion"? Are there any available polls? BTW: You might want to consult Wikipedia's policy on what constitutes a verifiable source. hgilbert (talk) 23:07, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Dutch study

The Dutch study explicitly says that the educational results were not evaluated because the free (Waldorf) schools do not use the state assessments. Unless we make clear what was actually evaluated, then, this is a misleading judgement to include. It seems that they judged that 8 of the 45 schools had weak methods to evaluate the progress of their pupils. Is this a correct reading of the text? hgilbert (talk) 19:19, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Quite the opposite. The majority of elementary schools in the Netherlands are not state schools, but so called "special schools" (see Special_school_(Netherlands)) which means they have their own curriculum and receive state funding. Waldorf schools are no exception to this! (94.212.52.82 (talk) 21:15, 11 June 2010 (UTC))

P.S. I have revisited it back to my edit. Should we leave the citation there and explain the context of the evalutation? If you read through the report you will see that the state assessments only contribute to (a small) part of the reports. Some Waldorf schools are performing better now than in the report from 2006, but many still provide poor education. You can find the list of all "very weak schools" (not only Waldorf) at http://www.onderwijsinspectie.nl/actueel/publicaties/overigdetails/Zeer+zwakke+basisscholen and conclude for yourself! (94.212.52.82 (talk) 21:41, 11 June 2010 (UTC)).

I think Hgilberts question though is more "if they didn't use the state evaluation/assessment method, the report says they were not evaluated (for the report)...is this correct". Your response is that they got state money and that there are poor performing schools. I havn't read the reports or link stuff. I hope the reports evaluation is better than most of the critical material that reads "waldorf bad, hippies crazy". --Rocksanddirt (talk) 23:40, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I looked at the list you provided of "very weak schools" - there are no Vrije Scholen among them at all as far as I can see. Am I missing something? In the original report there is an explicit disclaimer that the Waldorf schools could not be evaluated for performance, only for tracking. I will modify the section to reflect what the "Rapport" actually says. hgilbert (talk) 03:24, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

You indeed missed something, these are recent reports mentioned in the list: Basisschool Geert Groote 2, Basisschool Johannes - Vrije School Tiel.

I found a document dealing specificly with the Waldorf education: http://www.onderwijsinspectie.nl/actueel/publicaties/Zeer+zwakke+vrijescholen.html

These are the criteria where Waldorf significantly deviate from the average schools:

- ‘de school inzicht heeft in de verschillen in onderwijsbehoeften van haar leerlingenpopulatie’ (14 procent vs 74 procent),

- ‘het leerstofaanbod voor Nederlandse taal en voor rekenen en wiskunde dekkend is voor de kerndoelen’ (33 procent vs 96 procent),

- ‘de leerinhouden voor Nederlandse taal en voor rekenen en wiskunde zijn afgestemd op de onderwijsbehoeften van de individuele leerlingen’ (40 procent vs 93 procent),

- ‘de leraren de vorderingen van de leerlingen systematisch volgen’ (40 procent vs 95 procent), en

- ‘de school een samenhangend systeem van instrumenten en procedures gebruikt voor het volgen van de prestaties en de ontwikkeling van de leerlingen’ (40 procent vs 91 procent).

Only the last two points can count for an bad evaluation method. This has also been mentioned in the media 3 years ago: http://www.nrc.nl/wetenschap/article1836499.ece/Revolutie_op_de_Vrije_School As these reports are consistent the way you modified the article gives the impression that the Waldorf schools only had an bad evaluation which is not the case here!

Obvious there there are lot of advocates for Waldorf education here, but the public has the right to know that a majority of these schools is performing weaker than average. For people interested in this type of education this is also an indicator to look for a good Waldorf school. (94.212.52.82 (talk) 10:20, 12 June 2010 (UTC))

OK - I've located the inspecting authority's document which lists the detailed criteria you have above - I'll insert it as the citation. hgilbert (talk) 13:14, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Can you check if my translation is accurate? In particular, I'm not sure what the phrase "main goals" (kerndoelen) refers to - do you know if these are goals set by the evaluating authority or those of the schools themselves? hgilbert (talk) 13:28, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Material on individual schools

As has been discussed here before, material particular to individual schools is appropriately placed in articles on those schools, not in the general article. If there is not yet an article about the school, feel free to create one. hgilbert (talk) 18:30, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I am confused here. I posted something about both of the publically funded Waldorf schools in Sonoma County, not an 'individual school,' and that information comes from official sources (so it is properly sourced), and the information provides information which contradicts the 'Official' Waldorf position. I do not believe that the 'official' statement of the Waldorf committee reflects their reality. Anti-immunization is so highly correlated with the Waldorf schools I have looked at as to be close to official policy. Waldorf schools in the US education as practiced in the US includes a substantial anti-immunization RichGibson (talk) 18:30, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Concerns over immunizations

The current text refers to a 'consensus statement' which is a dead link. This page http://www.waldorfanswers.org/QuestionsMore.htm refers to a growing anti-immunization movement within and outside of Waldorf schools, but again refers to the same dead link as the 'consensus statement' on vaccinations.

The article does not cite a verifiable source on the policy of Waldorf education towards vaccinations. The article does say "Studies have found Waldorf pupils to have a lower incidence of allergies and allergic-like symptoms, an effect which correlated with the extent to which they lived an "anthroposophic lifestyle" generally - in particular with reduced use of antibiotics, antipyretics, and measles, mumps and rubella vaccination" Which is a deep violation of NPOV - to assert a correlation when there is a deep selection bias in the cited studies.

I will replace the immunization section with something sourced unless it is properly sourced.