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, and Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Waldorf education/Review. For the arbitration committee, Thatcher131 23:52, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Spiritualist, racist concerns ignored

This article reads like a propaganda piece for Steiner Schools. According to this article Steiner was a radical racist and believed in unconventional spirituality. One point it brings up is that reading is not taught to children until their adult teeth emerge because teaching reading is felt to interfere with the child's spiritual development. 128.135.39.147 (talk) 15:59, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

The criticism is valid but that article is hardly usable here because it is not a WP:Reliable source. If you can find similar criticisms from scholarly sources then bring them here. Binksternet (talk) 17:16, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

The criticism is pretty spurious as well. hgilbert (talk) 00:08, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

There was a BBC News item on Steiner Schools recently that mentioned this. I'd be happy to transcribe the relevant passage (And incidentally the fact that the topic was covered in a BBC documentary is surely notable in itself and should have some mention in this article). Yes? Alexbrn (talk) 11:40, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

I saw the documentary, as well. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that the concerns were about anthroposophy, the spiritual philosophy of the founder of Waldorf education, and not about the schools themselves. If so, they belong in Anthroposophy#Statements_on_race, if they add anything to the sources there, rather than here. hgilbert (talk) 12:06, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't think so. The piece is entitled "Frome Steiner school causes controversy", and the concerns were put directly to the head teacher and discussed with another teacher. Since BBC News framed it this way I don't think we should depart from that (if it was "concerns about anthroposophy", that is something I'd expect to see more on an Open University programme, than on the mid-evening BBC News!!) Alexbrn (talk) 12:14, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

The BBC story seems to have been based on incomplete research into what it broadcast, which makes it into an unreliable source for Wikipedia. 81.227.26.177 (talk) 14:20, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest problem

Prompted by a comment above about this article seeming like a "propaganda piece" I have been looking at the edit history of this article and come to the conclusion that there is a potentially significant conflict of interest issue here. In particular, User:Hgilbert (whose contributions are so substantive that he may be accounted a major shaping force for the article as it stands) is a Steiner School employee, who has been in discussion before about possible COI conflicts. These discussions have been deleted from his Talk page, accompanied by a misleading edit summary — "archive increasingly pointless discussion". The discussion was not in fact archived so far as I can see, but removed. In it, Hgilbert stated "[t]here are a lot of things I'm working to change in Waldorf education to bring it into the 21st century" which suggests his involvement is even more than being an employee and is very well advanced into COI territory. For this controversial topic, I propose that any editors with a COI interest (a) declare them, and (b) abide by Wikipedia policy in future by limiting the scope of their activity appropriately. I have added a COI tag to this article which can be removed when there is consensus to do so. Alexbrn (talk) 19:49, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

I suggest you look at the final arbitration review that reviewed this situation and/or consult with the arbitrators. I am no more or less conflicted than an employee of the public school system would be in editing an article on public education, or a US government employee would be in editing an article on the US government: I am not an employee of "Waldorf education", but of a particular school that uses this mode of education. I am not paid to do anything other than teach in the school, just as a public school teacher is paid to work in that kind of school, and a US gov't employee is paid by the US government. I am very interested in improving Waldorf education, but that hardly relates to my role as an editor.

I go out of my way to include a full range of viewpoints, insofar as they (from whatever side) can be supported by reliable sources. If you want to work cooperatively instead of hostilely, I would welcome this. If you want to reopen an arbitration or similar proceeding I believe that my editing will stand up well. hgilbert (talk) 21:47, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Exactly which part of arbitration review says that Waldorf teachers are not conflicted with regard to the Waldorf education article? Binksternet (talk) 22:03, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

In 2006, a determination was made at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Waldorf_education#Conflict_of_interest to categorize as conflicted any person "associated either with the Waldorf schools or with PLANS, an anti-Waldorf organization, who are aggressively editing Waldorf school and related articles in a biased manner." If Hgilbert is editing in a biased manner, or aggressively, then he holds a COI according to this finding. Such editors are required to refrain from reverting others. Rather, they are encouraged to argue for their viewpoint on the article talk page. Binksternet (talk) 22:17, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Binksternet: Can you show me what you would regard as an aggressive or biased edit? hgilbert (talk) 22:30, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

I will not pretend to know what was in the minds of the arbitrators six years ago. To me, "aggressive" would be repeated reversions. "Biased" would be continually pro-Waldorf or anti-Waldorf editing practices. Editors who might be described as aggressive or biased in these terms but who were not associated with Waldorf or PLANS would not fall under this particular ArbCom determination. Instead, these other editors would be subject to the usual Wikipedia guidelines. As a Waldorf teacher, you would look to the stricter ArbCom determination. Binksternet (talk) 23:23, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

I am familiar with the arbitration content, but don't see how it is relevant to this COI issue. As I have noted elsewhere, some people involved in that arbitration process seem prone to misrepresenting its outcomes in what seems like an attempt to shut down comment. I placed a COI warning on your Talk page but note you have deleted it. Your COI risk is quite simply stated: you earn your livelihood from teaching in the Steiner system, and that system depends for is existence/growth on recruiting new pupils, the success of which endeavour is affected by how successfully the Waldorf education system promotes itself. Since Wikipedia is quite likely to be consulted by parents considering Waldorf education, the content here may affect that recruiting success and so leads back through the chain to your personal stake in the system. In researching this COI I noticed (are you aware of this?) that some Steiner advocacy sites direct their readers to Wikipedia for information. Alexbrn (talk) 22:22, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree that I, and every other editor, should follow Wikipedia guidelines carefully and avoid biased editing. But I am not the one adding what is clearly personal opinion in the guise of fact (see the discussions elsewhere on this page). This should neither be done for positive, nor for negative opinions of the education.

Instead of getting involved in personal attacks, let's focus on the content, OK? hgilbert (talk) 22:27, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you mention "personal attacks". I'm sorry if you take the COI warning personally but I can assure you I did it in the best interests of the article, and there is no personal dimension. Alexbrn (talk) 22:58, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

• I disagree that the article and it's editors currently have a COI problem. While certain regular editors are more closely involved with Waldorf Education IRL, the editing of the article does not appear to have the normal COI editing challenges (See scientology articles for comparison). As the discussion of this item ended nearly two weeks ago and article work has seemed to continue in a collegial and appropriate manner, i'm going to remove the tag. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 18:57, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I notice from your talk page you have been prompted by hgilbert to come here. He is a user who has a COI according both to independent editors of this page and previous findings of the Arbitration Committee (see the relevant templates at the top of this page). At the very least, removing this tag without discussion seems peremptory. Please start a new section if you wish to discuss further. In the meantime, I have restored it. 19:07, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

• • Everyone has conflicts of interest. I'm not seeing the PROBLEM. please point out where his or any other current editors editing is a COI problem. All I see is a few folks trying to make an article better and more complete and more readable (that last bit has a ways to go). This section is fine to discuss the issue, we have lots of sections already. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 19:15, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
    • The problem is that Hgilbert continually edits the article to emphasise the positive and attenuate the negative. The 2006 ArbCom ruling warned against Waldorf-involved editors participating here in a biased manner. Hgilbert is Waldorf-involved and biased, thus he is restricted by the 2006 ruling from making content reversions or disputed text revisions. However, he has made many such reversions and revisions. Binksternet (talk) 19:22, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

In Wikipedia terms, not everyone has a COI. The problem with discussing this here is that it's right at the top of the page, so could interfere with the archival process. The "problem" is that at least one editor with a COI is continuing to edit here in a manner which goes against Wikipedia norms. The consequences of that are unnecessary heat on the talk page, suspicious patterns of editing/lobbying, and an article that is less good than it should be. COI is not measured by what is happening on the page, but by the personal circumstances of editors. Those being as they are, the tag is appropriate. I shall turn the question round to you: what is the "problem" of having a tag on this page which correctly describes both the situation of a prominent editor, and the genesis of the article? Why be less than correct? Alexbrn (talk) 19:27, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

The normal thing is to offer some diffs to show where the user has distorted or suppressed material. I am interested to see what you view as problematic edits. It is my impression that you have objected to reorganization of sections thematically, inclusion of more points of view, and other edits that actually implement, rather than contradict, Wikipedia policy. Or do you think that it's more important to include sheer speculation (as in the Carroll quote you added) than concrete studies? hgilbert (talk) 19:52, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Read this very page (or my edit summaries) for multiple descriptions of the damage your COI is doing. But you keep trying to frame COI as a content issue: it's not — it's a personal issue, one that inheres in you and which (naturally) you are blind to. You can't be trusted to be sufficiently impartial; you're not sufficiently impartial; you shouldn't be mangling this Article. That is what Wikipedia norms say. And the same of course applies to any other editor with a COI. COI is a terrible thing as it forces an editors personal circumstances continually to the fore (as now) – another good reason why COI tainted editors like yourself should follow the WP guidelines and assume a low profile. Why don't you? Alexbrn (talk) 21:33, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

As an aside, it is notoriously difficult to present diffs showing Civil POV pushing, rather it's a consistent pattern of behaviour over long periods. I note that you have consistently been trying to water down any negative material about the related anthroposophical medicine : [1][2][3] etc, so I think there is an issue of advocacy with articles around Steiner. IRWolfie- (talk) 11:51, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

"I'm not seeing the PROBLEM." If you're not seeing the problem, you're not looking very hard. Hgilbert is a Waldorf teacher who is controlling this and several other articles. If that isn't a problem, then Wikipedia cannot be a very good source of unbiased information can it? Not seeing the problem here damages Wikipedia. Anyone can look at the edit history and see the reasonable edits Hgilbert has reversed. How many editors have tried to adjust this article only to throw up their hands in frustration? How about the quick archiving and even the deleting of archives? This is the behavior of someone with a conflict of interest. It's Wikipedia's problem. 76.170.168.122 (talk) 14:38, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

"natural, unmanufactured materials"

Siraj-Blatchford and Whitebread are idiosyncratic in describing Waldorf early childhood programs as emphasizing "non-manufactured" materials. The claim is unsourced and wildly inaccurate; obviously Waldorf early childhood programs use tables, chairs, buildings, cloths, cutlery, and probably thousands of other items that are manufactured. Siraj-Blatchford and Whitebread essentially critique the schools for not doing what they never claimed to do.

To see if there was some basis for their claim, I did a Google search on "non-manufactured" materials and Steiner or Waldorf; the only hit that comes up is a reference which uses Siraj-Blatchford and Whitebread as their source for the claim.

The claim is sourced to an otherwise excellent RS, but I would suggest that it is a bugbear better left out. How do others feel?

Also: I have moved this to early childhood, as the source is speaking of "Foundation Stage education", which applies to 3-5 year olds in Britain. hgilbert (talk) 21:28, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

In the process of "moving" you also (unacknowledged) re-worded the content to slant it in a way favourable to Waldorf/Steiner, both by removing the sourced phrase "belief system", and distancing the sourced description by characterizing it as a "criticism" of the authors — elsewhere in this article, in content introduced by you for example, sourced description is generally stated directly without employing this distancing tactic. As an editor with a clear COI problem you should not be editing this article in substance, and particularly not in this way so as to direct its meaning in a certain direction. Alexbrn (talk) 21:42, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

For comparison: should we state that "Waldorf education a healing education whose underlying principles are appropriate for educating all children" without making it clear that this is one person's opinion? If not, why should we state that it is "illogical" without making it clear that this is one person's opinion?

The standard that I would normally employ is to differentiate between an objective description, and an opinion. Opinions elsewhere in this article are sourced clearly to their author; this is true whether they are favorable (e.g. Peterkin and Nielsen) or unfavorable. That seems to me pretty sound practice.

About the change of wording: Would you not say that calling something "illogical" is a critique? How does this remotely direct its meaning in a certain direction? hgilbert (talk) 22:09, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Three things. First, edit summaries should accurately reflect the edit made - which yours didn't, since you re-worded the content in transit without mentioning it. Secondly, I don't think it's right that "opinions elsewhere in this article are sourced clearly to their author"; the lede for example is full of unsourced (and rather glowing) opinion. Thirdly I'm not sure the case in point is an opinion: the scenario of forbidding manufactured items but allowing woollen cloth is, objectively, illogical is it not? (I know you dispute the accuracy of the source but that's another topic). Alexbrn (talk) 22:48, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

The lead is unique in that it is a summary of the whole article. The statements in the lead need to be supported by the content of the article, and that content provides the detailed sources and treatment for the summary statements in the lead. Regarding "non-manufactured" materials in the Early Years classes, the authors may have heard about the preference for "hand-made" items and turned that -- incorrectly -- into its apparent opposite, namely non-manufactured items. They are also incorrectly equating a preference to an absolute requirement. In fact there are many manufactured items in the Waldorf classroom but the preference is for hand-made items, e.g. a hand-carved wooden spoon for play rather than a factory-made metal spoon, but metal spoons are indeed used -- for eating. So what seems illogical is most likely due to the authors' misreading of some statement from a Waldorf source. In any case, their statements are, as Hgilbert pointed out, inaccurate. --EPadmirateur (talk) 00:41, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

The edit summary focused on the primary purpose and content of the edit; I apologize profusely for not mentioning there what I thought was an insignificant and uncontroversial addition of the word "criticism". I will try to make my edit summaries here comprehensive.

I have reread the lede and wonder what you consider "opinion" there. Some items are listed as goals of the schools, which are clearly goals; others as characteristics (holistic approach, interdisciplinary approach) which are quite uncontroversially characteristics. These characteristics are not praised, they are simply presented. I don't know who would doubt what is presented there; can you point to what you consider opinion?

It would not be illogical, but rather inconsistent to forbid something yet use that nonetheless. The whole claim is so ridiculous that it is really not worth discussing further, however, as EPadmirateur has also pointed out. hgilbert (talk) 01:45, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

In the lede, stuff about what the approach emphasizes, what Waldorf education's overarching goals are, and how it "helps every child fulfill his or her unique destiny" is somebody's opinion. Alexbrn (talk) 02:35, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks; the specifics are helpful.

Goals are not opinions, but simply a person or institution or movement's chosen directions. Whether the education achieves the goals is another question. The lede makes no claims about the latter, however. In the sections you mention, it merely specifies what the intended direction is. Once again, I can't imagine anyone doubting that this is what Waldorf education intends.

Incidentally, the lede doesn't say that the education helps children to fulfill their destiny, but that its goal is to do so. Same response: this is clearly its goal. Whether it is a good goal, or whether it succeeds at the goal, is more a matter of opinion. hgilbert (talk) 03:03, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

But who says what Waldorf education's goals are? Alexbrn (talk) 03:23, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Dead links

Dead links should not be removed, but the appropriate template added to indicate the problem so it can be fixed. hgilbert (talk) 22:12, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Given the arbitration ruling on this article, I think editors should be zealous in removing unsourced material. Alexbrn (talk) 04:40, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps you could reread WP:Link rot, which explicitly says "Do not delete cited information solely because the URL to the source does not work any longer." hgilbert (talk) 11:08, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Opinions and facts

The following recent addition to the article is stated as fact, whereas it is actually Carroll's opinion: However, it is likely that some of anthroposophy's weirder views will be passed-on in Waldorf education, such as Steiner's belief in the existence of Atlantis or his views on astral bodies, even though anthroposophy is not formally part of the curriculum.

I suggest that it would be more appropriate to revise it to reflect the fact that it is one person's opinion, as has done elsewhere in the article. hgilbert (talk) 22:15, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, this is better. We should apply this procedure to other sourced statements in the article that aren't plain facts. Alexbrn (talk) 04:38, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Failed verification

I am puzzled by the Failed verification templates that have been added:

-- "Its methodology encourages collaborative learning." is cited to a source that says "Some private schools, such as the Waldorf schools, already operate based upon collaborative reasoning". How is this a failure in verification?

-- " learning is interdisciplinary, integrating practical, artistic, and conceptual elements" is cited to a source that says, "The school conception of education is reflected in a curriculum in which practical, artistic and academic learning are equally represented and integrated." I have added an additional citation supporting the term interdisciplinary (and the term holistic, appearing earlier in the sentence). hgilbert (talk) 01:26, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Alexbrn, I'd like to add that it is customary if one can't personally verify the source (e.g. because the text isn't available on-line) to ask the other editors what the source says, rather than put a "verification failed" tag on. In the second example, your edit summary said "can't see how the source supports the assertions made" but the source specifically cited page 150, so it would be appropriate to ask, "What does this source say on p. 150 that supports this statement?" I also don't have access to the Rist and Schneider book, so I'd like to ask, for the record, what does p. 150 say? Perhaps Hgilbert can help out here.

I'd also like to say that, rather than remove statements from the text that one feels are not properly sourced, it is more customary to put a "citation needed" tag on instead. That leaves other editors the opportunity to find citations rather than notice that text has been removed. In this particular case, speaking of the origins of Waldorf, there was also a major additional "main article" on this subject History of Waldorf schools that is well-cited. In removing the first paragraph of the section wholesale, the entire section became meaningless. --EPadmirateur (talk) 02:20, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Why should I ask other editors when I have access to that text myself? I said what my problem was as clearly as I could ... I don't see how custom comes into it!

As to removing content, with respect, you're wrong. WP:V explicitly states that "any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed". However, in the case of this article, the arbitration ruling states "editors of this are expected to remove all original research and other unverifiable information ..." (my emphasis). Some schools of thought have it that removal of unsourced content is actually best practice, since it is most likely to get a good outcome for the article (as it has here, for which much thanks!). Alexbrn (talk) 02:47, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

This was sourced and cited. You removed the citation. To then claim that the problem was that there was no citation is misleading at best.

The source is readily available at [unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0003/000363/036368eo.pdf]. hgilbert (talk) 03:43, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, you've lost me there. I don't think I'm claiming there's a missing citation, but that I can't see how the citation backs the text. And I don't believe I removed any citation from the passage I removed as unsourced. But of course it's quite possible I've made a mistake! I note, however, your implication of bad faith: please don't do that. Alexbrn (talk) 04:00, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

See here for one example of a citation being replaced by a citation needed tag. But I apologize for any implication of malicious intent. We're all trying to improve Wikipedia.

Vis a vis the connection of the citations and text: If you review the summary at the top of this section, does it not seem to you that the cited text and the article text are virtually identical in both of these cases? With all the good will in the world, I'm missing something here. hgilbert (talk) 11:19, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks - I wonder if we're seeing the same text? ... the page 150 I'm looking at starts "The art of education as practised in Rudolf Steiner schools is governed by this postulate. ...". Alexbrn (talk) 11:42, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

You're right; though page 150 also mentions the interrelationship of the three aspects, the text I quoted here ("The school conception of education is reflected in a curriculum in which practical, artistic and academic learning are equally represented and integrated.") was actually from page 1. I've added page 1 (and other pages) to the citation to clarify the issue. hgilbert (talk) 12:50, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

The problem now is that it is apparent the source does not support the text, since the source describes a single school, the curriculum of which is merely "heavily influenced" by Steiner, and for which "it is open to speculation whether the form of curriculum articulation exemplified here could be implemented independently of Steiner's theory". Such a caveated description of a single school just isn't good enough as a source for an essentialized description of Steiner education in general, stated as fact. A further problem is that the source is authored in whole or in part by "persons deeply involved in the movement such as teachers or theoreticians", which contravenes the AC ruling on sources. I have therefore removed this material. Alexbrn (talk) 10:43, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

too much of a leap from what the source actually says, to what is claimed

Hi, Alexbrn, in this edit you question that the Grace Chen source supports the statement that the Waldorf methodology encourages collaborative learning. At the end of the article, Chen states "some private schools, such as the Waldorf schools, already operate based upon collaborative reasoning". Chen earlier stated that "collaborative reasoning programs encourage students to become consistently active and personally accountable for their own evaluations and conclusions". This is presented in the context of and as part of "collaborative learning".

How does the WP article statement "present a leap from what the source actually says" -- that "Waldorf methodology encourages collaborative learning" is a leap from "Waldorf schools operate based on collaborative reasoning" in the context of collaborative learning?

Please discuss. In the meantime, I am removing the tag. --EPadmirateur (talk) 01:45, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

The reasoning in the Article here is that since Waldorf methodology is "based on" collaborative reasoning, and since collaborative reasoning begets collaborative learning, then Waldorf methodology itself begets collaborative learning. In other words, "A and B, therefore C". This is a WP:OR leap of logic by the editor -- it could (say) be the case that Waldorf education has other aspects which nullify the effect of its collaborative reasoning basis. Conclusions must be avoided that are not explicitly stated by any of the sources. Alexbrn (talk) 02:12, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

I disagree. The conclusion that collaborative learning results from collaborative reasoning is Chen's conclusion, not any editor's. That's what her article is all about. And she applied collaborative reasoning, and therefore collaborative learning, specifically to Waldorf at the end of her article, particularly given the context of the end of the sentence:

While some private schools, such as the Waldorf schools, already operate based upon collaborative reasoning, the philosophy shows great promise for the future of public school classrooms.

To assert any other interpretation is a leap of logic. --EPadmirateur (talk) 03:01, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't want to assert any interpretation. Your telling me what the article is "all about", invoking context, etc. is pure OR. Wikipedia policy is crystal clear: conclusions must be avoided that are not explicitly stated by the source. Alexbrn (talk) 03:29, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

To teach collaborative reasoning is to foster collaborative learning; these are just two terms for the same thing in this context. It is a perfectly normal paraphrase, especially since Chen uses both terms essentially equivalently. hgilbert (talk) 03:40, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

"these are just two terms for the same thing in this context. It is a perfectly normal paraphrase, especially since Chen uses both terms essentially equivalently" -- is just pure WP:OR. I don't know what else I can say, so I shall just re-state Wikpedia policy again: conclusions must be avoided that are not explicitly stated by the source. Alexbrn (talk) 03:44, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

remove journal article source published by the Waldorf Library

Hi Alexbrn, you have apparently removed a citation to a Ph.D. dissertation from the accredited Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center here, apparently because it also appears on the Internet on the "Waldorf Library" web site. Wherever else this source has been published does not negate the fact that it is a WP:RS that does not conflict with the arbitration committee's restrictions, since it comes initially from a non-anthroposophical source. I am going to reverse your edit. It seems you are stretching considerably the interpretation of the arbitration committee. --EPadmirateur (talk) 05:35, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Content that appears in anthroposophical sources is considered "self-published by the Anthroposophy movement"; this is just such content. Granted, it had some previous existence prior to publication, but citing that prior version looked to me like a mistake (I assumed the editor was unaware the content was now published). I would err on the side of caution and consider that this content's appearance in an anthroposophical source is a pretty clear indication that it's unsuitable material: if in doubt, keep it out. But your position is: if in doubt, keep it in (?) Okay, I can live with that, if other editors can ... Still, it surely must appear eccentric to outsiders to be quoting a dissertation when a published journal article equivalent exists; and if this was seen as a way of dodging round the arbitration committee's decision that would be bad. Alexbrn (talk) 06:01, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

A dissertation clearly qualifies as a reliable source. The reason for this is because of the independent, academic peer review process that any dissertation passes through. Its later publication by any organization does not remove the peer review, of course. The reason anthroposophical (or any institutions') "self-publications" are not considered reliable sources is that they have presumably not been through this kind of outside review. hgilbert (talk) 11:05, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Hmmmmm – actually looking at this a bit more, I'm not sure it's that clear. The AC ruling prohibits "[a]nthroposophy related publications, especially by persons deeply involved in the movement such as teachers or theoreticians", and the author of the piece appears to be a theoretician involved in the movement (it says in her bio she is now a member of the Board of Directors for Haleakala Waldorf School on Maui). The piece also sources anthroposophical material directly in the handful of references it has, which suggests it is an 'anthroposophy related publications' (vague as that phrase is). In general, it's a concern that the references of this (Wikipedia) article lean so heavily on dissertations … are there really no equivalent supporting sources published in reputable publications that could be used instead? Alexbrn (talk) 14:45, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Looking over the citations, there appear to be relatively few dissertations; certainly not an alarming proportion.

A member of a Board of Directors hardly qualifies as a theoretician! In any case, the work is peer reviewed.

More generally: As Waldorf education is intimately connected to anthroposophy, by the above proposed reasoning any source whatsoever that mentioned Waldorf schools would be an anthroposophy related publication, and thus excluded as a source for this article. That would make writing this article pretty hard; we could only use sources that didn't mention Waldorf at all.

The interpretation that the arbitrators put forward in discussions over the vague phrasing was that material published by anthroposophic presses would be invalid, as there is a presumed bias, whereas material published under objective peer review would be valid, regardless of the author of the work. (Just as one could not imagine excluding a work on the Catholic Church that had been published by an academic press, merely because its author was Catholic.) The standards of WP:NPOV require that all viewpoints are presented; it would be a gross violation of this to exclude the emic viewpoint. hgilbert (talk) 01:09, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Being on a board of directors certainly counts as being "involved in the movement" though, doesn't it?

Ph.D. dissertations are of course not "peer-reviewed" but examined, usually by a supervisor closely acquainted with the student and their work (and who champions it), and an "external" - who may or may not be connected with the student and/or their supervisor. Obviously there are degrees (hah!) of quality in how this is applied. A dissertation examined at Harvard or Oxford carries a different weight to one produced for a correspondence course at some backwater institution which has since gone out of business.

As Wikipedia puts it, Ph.D. dissertations have been "vetted by the scholarly community" ... that's not the same as "peer review" where (typically) an independent panel of senior experts assesses the work of somebody they don't know. So if the arbitration panel is insisting on "peer review" then we are in trouble and need to have a citation cull. I think the kind of case that would be of most concern is where an anthroposophic dissertation by a student involved in the anthroposophy movement was examined by assessor(s) involved in the anthroposophy movement, particularly at non-mainstream institutions. Having said that, I don't think these sources are being used to support exceptional claims, so in my view the issue is not critical. Alexbrn (talk) 10:32, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree. hgilbert (talk) 11:05, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

RS for self-reporting

WP:SELFSOURCE states:

Self-published or questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, especially in articles about themselves, without the requirement that they be published experts in the field, so long as: the material is neither unduly self-serving nor an exceptional claim; it does not involve claims about third parties (such as people, organizations, or other entities); it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject; there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity; the article is not based primarily on such sources.

I will restore the Association of Waldorf Schools statement, as this is clearly an example of an organization stating its equal-opportunity policy, a normal thing for any organization to do, and this article is indeed about the Waldorf schools.hgilbert (talk) 11:12, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree that this statement should be allowed, particularly for WP:NPOV. I have added an equivalent statement from the European Council for Steiner Waldorf Education (ECSWE) because it is more relevant to an issue raised in the UK. --EPadmirateur (talk) 14:54, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Removing unsourced reference from lede

I am removing the text from the lede "It has a humanistic approach to pedagogy and learning is interdisciplinary", which (as in the case discussed earlier) does not appear to be supported by the source. I have two meta-questions which maybe long-standing editors here can help me with:

• Has there been any concern in the past (maybe during arbitration) about sources being less good than required?
• Am I going to find, after wrestling each source in the lede to the mat, that all of them are iffy?

Alexbrn (talk) 11:00, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

The interdisciplinary part was explicitly supported by the text, and I quoted the relevant text at the top of the Talk:Waldorf education#Failed verification section above. I have added it to the footnote itself, as well, now. For the humanistic approach I have added a new citation and quoted the relevant text in it, as well.

Perhaps you could raise future issues here on the talk page first. Much of what you have questioned has turned out to be well supported by the existing citations; I don't know why you have had so much trouble finding the relevant text within the citation. Simple searches for a keyword would often have sufficed.

For many questions, like the humanistic approach, it is easy to find supporting citations. That's why it's advantageous to put a citation needed template, or mention the problem here, rather than to remove the text. hgilbert (talk) 14:59, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Bear in mind I'm not close to the text like you are – I'm thinking of the innocent reader coming here with fresh eyes. It seems a bit unreasonable to have a statement supported by a reference, and expect them to know that in fact only the last three words are supported, and that in order to check references they may need to split the supported text up and search for fragments before they strike it lucky in finding the partial support!

Nevertheless, the edit you have made fixes this problem, and your other edits are improving matters too. I think the level of misdirection/misrepresentation in the text is gradually diminishing.

As a general observation, I think the lede is of pretty low quality as an introduction. It's certainly in no danger of winning a plain English award. I appreciate this may be a consequence of the edit warring of past years, but is there really no pithy and readable summary of Waldorf education that could be sourced/used here? It seems to me a general problem with this article that while the Steiner movement writes about itself (perhaps to excess) there are fairly few plainly stated descriptions of it. Maybe this is because the federated nature of the system makes it quite difficult to generalize accurately? Alexbrn (talk) 15:34, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Ahhh! Your latest query is truly problematic; the Nielsen footnote has absolutely nothing to do with the text it appears next to. Puzzled, I searched...years ago, in 2007, there was a statement about Waldorf being one of the largest independent school systems, sourced to Nielsen. Someone at some point rearranged, then removed the text. I have restored the original context.

I don't know if you want separate confirmation of the fact that there are Waldorf home-schooling programs and charter schools. We can easily provide this if necessary, of course. I've added this assuming you do. hgilbert (talk) 15:19, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Who's "we"? Alexbrn (talk) 15:38, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

We editors: You, me and anyone else who cares to try. The sources aren't hard to find. hgilbert (talk) 16:18, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

I've been staring at your question...and realize why it stands out. I seem to be the only one trying to check if there are citations to support the statements made here. It would be nice if you would also do so, and add a query if you are unable to readily find these. hgilbert (talk) 16:33, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

And you struck the text out because … ?

As to editing M.O. – we do it differently. It seems to me that you have a firm idea of what needs to be said, and a fair idea of how to find sources to back that conception up: you are leaning towards what might be termed "author mode". I admit, to some extent I had the same approach with a concept of some balancing (what might be termed negative) information that needed to be in this article for POV reasons. But in general I take a much more editorial stance: what needs to done to make the article better? – and sometimes to improve a text you need to do violence to it. Alexbrn (talk) 17:05, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

I struck the offer to find citations "if necessary" because based on the history here, I figured that you would probably demand the citations anyway, so I might as well just go ahead and do the work right away.

I don't know how much you know about the subject, but it seems to me that you are demanding substantiation for every single phrase, as if you don't have any reference point to work from. I was just looking at the article on Impressionism for comparison; there are hundreds of statements that could be contested, as they are not supported by citations -- but people who know something about the subject wouldn't bother to question these, because from an informed standpoint it is a reasonable description. I suggest that many of the characterizations here of Waldorf are similar. They are characterizations that those who know something about the subject would essentially universally agree with, and that many reliable sources would support. Do they really need separate citations? Obviously, for you they do. I'm wondering why. hgilbert (talk) 18:14, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm a proud deletionist in that I think it improves an article to remove dead wood. I don't like to pummel the reader into senselessness with wordiness. Binksternet (talk) 17:45, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

I would also like to be included among the editors here who are trying to improve this article and providing sources to support statements in the lead and elsewhere, if editors feel that specific statements and characterizations need to be sourced. I would agree with Hgilbert that the characterizations are well-sourced and are generally held among those who are familiar with Waldorf education, as they appear in many sources. However, if the characterizations sound implausible or overly positive to the general reader then they can be sourced. If there are negative characterizations in reliable sources, they need to be included as well for a neutral point of view. --EPadmirateur (talk) 19:56, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

De-footnote lede

I suggest that we make an effort to move supportive text, with footnotes, to the body (for example about charter, public and homeschooling Waldorf environments). This would allow us to remove footnotes from the lede in many cases, improving flow. hgilbert (talk) 15:36, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Strongly agree. I am intending at some point to attribute the sources of the various quotations about Steiner (except where they state the plainest of plain facts), and am afraid a consequence of that will be that the lede turns from being somewhat, to completely, undreadable ...

I think we're going to face a challenge in summarizing the body into a lede while avoiding OR/SYN however. A nice plain secondary source would be so useful. Alexbrn (talk) 15:43, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Great. Sounds like a project.

Vis a vis personal attributions: I suggest we distinguish between a personal evaluation, and a widely accepted characterization. For many statements here that are supported by citations to one or two sources, quite a few other citations could also be found. That Steiner education is interdisciplinary, is essentially universally accepted, for example, and many supportive sources can be found for this. It makes little sense to attribute a commonly accepted characterization to a single person, and in my opinion a list of all the people who share the opinion would look foolish. Other statements may be unique to a particular author, and then should be attributed to this person.

Perhaps we could make a list of statements we propose to attribute to individuals here, so they can be checked for their universality first. (Or at least run a Google search for Steiner OR Waldorf education and the keyword and see if it is a common characterization, before particularizing it.) Would you agree that this makes sense? hgilbert (talk) 16:29, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

To do this by the book, WP:INTEXT says inline attribution is only omissible in the case of "simple facts"; so I think any kind of commentary, description or evaluation will need it, no matter how common it is. (I also think it's a general problem with the lede that it tries to cram in too much commentary, description and evaluation). Alexbrn (talk) 10:35, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

I have to say that one of the problems with the lead is that it doesn't have any statements summarizing the concerns and negative reception in the Reception section (and elsewhere? -- are there no negative studies?). Including such summary statements in the lead would go a long way to balancing the article. Waldorf education has no dearth of detractors: their concerns need to be summarized in the article's lead. --EPadmirateur (talk) 20:09, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

There is no dearth of detractors via blogs and such. Every time this subject comes up -- and it has frequently -- we discover that there seems to be a serious dearth of detractors amongst educationalists and academics who have studied the schools. But I'm open to finding out that this has changed, or that we've missed something. hgilbert (talk) 22:20, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

The Reception section has reliably sourced concerns and criticisms (use of computers, reading and literacy, racism controversy, immunization). Some sentences summarizing the most important of these concerns is really needed in the lead, I believe. --EPadmirateur (talk) 23:33, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

If the reception is to be summarized in the lede, then it should be even-handedly, pointing out both positive and negative aspects. See WP:Criticism. hgilbert (talk) 01:20, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

The WP:LEAD guideline says that major points discussed in the article body should be summarized in the lead section. Criticism is such a point. Strictly speaking, no citations are needed in the lead section (everything is cited in the article body), but if material is questioned then cites are commonly placed in the lead to reinforce the validity of controversial bits. Binksternet (talk) 01:22, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

I've spent some time trawling online libraries for Waldorf material, and it seems to be a good proportion of what has been written by reliable sources is already cited in the article here. However, a couple of peer-reviewed article which are very critical of Waldorf education are noticeable by their absence (they state Waldorf Education is a cult). For balance these really should be included and then we should think about how the raw materials we have can be boiled down into a summary of criticism for the lede. (FWIW I am myself would then be satisfied that, source-wise, the article has a good and fair representation of verifiable commentary — even if the narrative of the Article itself may still need work to build on that in the best way). Alexbrn (talk) 15:06, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

In-text attribution

As far as I can see, WP:INTEXT nowhere suggests that everything but simple facts needs citation. Here are some relevant standards I find there:

• "Simple facts ...can have inline citations to reliable sources as an aid to the reader, but normally the text itself is best left as a plain statement without in-text attribution"
• "sources are required for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged"
• Neutrality issues apart, there are other ways in-text attribution can mislead. The sentence below suggests The New York Times has alone made this important discovery:

According to The New York Times, the sun will set in the west this evening.

• "Biased statements of opinion can be presented only with attribution"

(The last is from NPOV)

In this article, essentially every statement, including those of simple fact, has been challenged by one editor or another over time. (An example of this is the opening statement that Waldorf education was founded by Rudolf Steiner; an editor became very aggressive challenging this at one point, and thus there is a footnote for what is clearly a simple statement of fact.) The footnotes have thus proliferated, and perhaps this process refined the article in some ways. hgilbert (talk) 13:46, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

A degree of common sense is necessary. Personally I think the register of the lede is mostly wrong - it reads like it's aimed at academics in the field of education philosophy rather than the general reader. So the second sentence now is "it has a humanistic approach to pedagogy" (which would be better stated as "it has been described as having ...") — I'd much prefer to see something much more down-to-earth here. Alexbrn (talk) 14:56, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Taking apart the lede; a space for reconstructive activity

Overview

• Waldorf education (also known as Steiner education) is an alternative educational system based on the ideas of Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy.
  • Introductory sentence
• It has a humanistic approach to pedagogy; learning is interdisciplinary, integrating practical, artistic, and conceptual elements. The approach emphasizes the role of the imagination in learning, developing thinking that includes a creative as well as an analytic component.

(Comment: I think this is too wordy and hifalutin. Alexbrn (talk) 15:20, 2 December 2012 (UTC))

• • General sense of the approach
• The educational philosophy's overarching goals are to provide young people the basis on which to develop into free, morally responsible, and integrated individuals, and to help every child fulfill his or her unique destiny, the existence of which anthroposophy posits.

(Comment: I am concerned about who is defining these overarching goals. We don't say. To me a WP:SYN warning light is flashing here. Alexbrn (talk) 15:20, 2 December 2012 (UTC))

This is an example of a widely accepted set of goals, articulated in many works about Waldorf education (Education Towards Freedom, etc.), and cited to a RS, which states just what is said here. It seems to me that every possible base has been touched, to use a baseball metaphor. hgilbert (talk) 22:19, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

I've searched the first source (Nielsen) but couldn't find this overarching goal mentioned. Could you point me to a page please? Alexbrn (talk) 22:36, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

p. 85; only in conjunction with the two other sources is this usable, however. But you are right that we are putting together a number of goals listed in separate sources, and that no one lists all of these. Would it help to reword to beginning of the sentence to something like "Its goals include..."? hgilbert (talk) 11:57, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Personally, I have no preference for how it's done so long as opinion is clearly identifiable as opinion, content accurately reflects sources, and we remove the element of editorial synthesis. I think, though, that trying to compact all this stuff into a short space for the lede isn't going to work. This material would be better devolved to the article body and unpacked, and then some plain summary could be made of it in the lede, if appropriate. Alexbrn (talk) 12:18, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

• • Internal goals, which are rather unique
• Schools and teachers are given considerable freedom to define curricula within collegial structures.
  • Special structure

Practical details

• The first Waldorf school was founded in 1919 to serve the children of employees at the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory in Stuttgart, Germany.
  • Historical origin
• As of 2012, there were 1,025 independent Waldorf schools, 2,000 kindergartens and 629 institutions for special education, located in 60 countries.
  • Present state
• There are also Waldorf-based public (state) schools, charter schools, and homeschooling environments, making up one of the world's largest independent educational systems; in addition, other state and private schools are increasingly using methods drawn from Waldorf education.
  • Ditto

(Comment: and add a paragraph dealing with controversy/criticism, perhaps starting "Waldorf eduction is controversial ... " Alexbrn (talk) 15:20, 2 December 2012 (UTC))

Re: Concerns that Waldorf education is religious

If the Dan Dugan-Judy Daar concerns are included, there need to be balancing, WP:RS statements disputing the religious nature of Waldorf education and/or anthroposophy, for WP:NPOV. Dugan and Daar make statements that are strongly disputed by Waldorf proponents. --EPadmirateur (talk) 20:08, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

No doubt! – do you know of one? I thought the legal narrative I moved to that section acts as a well-sourced counter-balance. Alexbrn (talk) 20:54, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

We do not artificially "balance" the treatment of a topic to give equal weight to opposing sides that are not so balanced in real life. More discussion is made about how Waldorf schools have a cult religious or cult pseudoscience aspect than discussion about how that is not true.

• The School Choice Hoax: Fixing America's Schools, page 111. "The [Waldorf charter school] teaching techniques we observed seemed more fitting for producing compliant cult members than students capable of independent thought."
• Hands, Hearts, and Heads: Childhood and Esotericism in American Waldorf, page 169. "The anticult organization International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA), formerly the American Family Foundation (AFF), has treated anthroposophy and Waldorf as 'cults' and has printed articles in this vein in its publication Cultic Studies Review."

From a quick look at online sources it appears the argument against Waldorf schools being religious hinges on whether anthroposophy is a religion which is taught in Waldorf, or whether the unconventional spiritualism of Waldorf can be called a religion. The angry parents describe secrecy and falsehood in how Waldorf represents itself compared with what is delivered to the child. Educators note how Waldorf adherents clothe their argument in secular concepts to make it seem less religious, but the children are nonetheless inculcated in the Waldorf-brand eccentric spirituality. Binksternet (talk) 21:43, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree we don't want to create any sort of artificial parity, but if there are various contending well-sourced views around a topic they should be aired and probably clustered together -- for coherence if nothing more. If your excerpts are RS (and they appear to be), why not add them to the Article? Alexbrn (talk) 21:57, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

I have added the position statements of AWSNA and the Anthroposophical Society in America regarding Waldorf and anthroposophy, and religion. --EPadmirateur (talk) 17:53, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! I was wondering why something like that wasn't there already ... Alexbrn (talk) 18:05, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Controversy paragraph

I inserted one, as outlined in discussion above, but note the edit has been reverted by User:Hgilbert – who, as a COI-tainted editor under ArbCom sanction needs to be extremely careful here. What's the problem? Everything mentioned in the para is mentioned in the body, and stated plainly. If the para "needs work" then start on that work, don't revert — that appears to me like an aggressive edit. Alexbrn (talk) 18:03, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes. From WP:Bold: "Don't get upset if your bold edits get deleted." Sometimes it's better to work something through in the talk space. hgilbert (talk) 23:31, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Lede: controversy

The following needs work:

• Waldorf education is controversial. In the academic sphere, debate has centred on Steiner Schools' practice of not teaching reading and ICT skills as early as in mainstream education. In the social sphere, Waldorf education has been accused of discouraging immunization and harbouring unacceptable views on race; the Waldorf movement has denied both accusations. In the United States there has been opposition to Waldorf education gaining public funding, on the grounds that it is a "religious" education. The Waldorf movement has denied it is religious, and successfully defended that position in court.

1. The opening sentence is questionable; it appears to me to be WP:OR.
2. I don't know of serious debate in the academic world about Steiner Schools not teaching reading in EC; there has been such debate in the popular press. (Unless this refers to the academic side of school, rather than academia, in which case it should be reworded for clarity.)
3. ICT--similar questions, and in both cases we probably need to attribute this to particular individuals rather than to a nebulous "academic sphere"
4. Social sphere-- funny term --

I question whether every one of these controversies justifies a place in the lede, and if so, does every positive affirmation also justify a place there? NPOV would require balance here (see WP:Criticism). hgilbert (talk) 18:34, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

I see nothing of substance here to justify blanking the paragraph as you did; and for that reason this seems to be COI-tainted, unduly POV editing. However, to your points:

1. Don't you find it strange trying to deny this is a controversial topic on a page which has at its head, in bold text, "the subject of this article is controversial"? Since multiple controversies appear in the body text, it is a perfectly reasonable supposition that the topic is controversial, and editorial consensus was reached above that this paragraph should be here (consensus which your aggressive editing is breaking).

A Wikipedia tag is hardly a RS. It seems to me clearly OR or WP:SYN to claim that a topic is "controversial". Every topic is controversial in one sense -- evolution is controversial, Catholicism is controversial, psychology is controversial -- but it would be better to articulate the controversies, than to claim that it is controversial, which is a loaded statement not supported by any sources (so far as I know). Can you see the difference?

1. Then you should read the article, in the "Reading and literacy" there is well-sourced debate on this topic from excellent sources, and a well-sourced description of this area as, literally, "controversial".

I suspect I misunderstood your phrasing (see above); I thought you were trying to indicate that this debate was within the academic world, whereas you might mean that it is about the schools' approach to academics. As I indicated above, clarifying this would help.

1. ICT - again, read the section: already a first-class source questioning the validity of Waldorf's ICT teaching. If you disagree, bring your concerns to talk rather than blanking the para.
2. Okay, "social sphere" may be a slightly infelicitous term. The lede needs to summarize the body neutrally, so if you can come up with a better term please supply it!

As to whether this paragraph should exist, as a COI-tainted editor I don't believe you can even be offering a view that need be weighed. And no, "positive affirmations" should not be intermixed in the para here as this is not a list of "negative" affirmations, rather a list of areas of controversy, which affirms no position. It follows, of course, two broadly affirmative paragraphs about Steiner education. Your appeals to WP policy misrepresent it: WP:LEAD clearly states that a lead should "summarize the most important points—including any prominent controversies" (my emphasis). That is what this paragraph does. In the absence of any valid reason for blanking this paragraph, I shall restore it. Kindly refrain from further tendentious disruption. Alexbrn (talk) 19:33, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Alternative (needs work still): Waldorf pedagogy has been critiqued for not embracing formal instruction in reading, mathematics, and information technology in early childhood programs; the value of doing so remains controversial amongst literacy experts. Some Waldorf schools have been criticized for having low immunization rates for certain vaccinations; the schools assert that this is due to individual decisions by parents, rather than school policy. A number of critics have suggested that Waldorf schools include spiritual or religious elements; the schools have denied they are religious in nature, and in the United States have successfully defended that position in court. hgilbert (talk) 18:53, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, it reads like a PR defensive exercise, by omitting some things (like the word "controversy"), fudging other things (by e.g. implying that the immunization criticism is just a cricism of "some schools", which is to misrepresent the body) and silently censoring other things (like the controversy about Steiner's views on race). So no, not very good. But (to repeat myself) since you have a COI conflict I am just astounded that you can even think you have any business edit warring on this paragraph! Alexbrn (talk) 19:45, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

I am not trying to edit war, just to talk this over and come to consensus, which I am sure we can do, before posting a major addition to the lede. If you want to use the word controversy to describe particular debates, that's fine. The general term seems to me to be suspect.

I have changed the schools section in the proposed alternative above to be more general; I hadn't noticed the recent addition of a more general critique...most critiques I had seen were directed to particular schools.hgilbert (talk) 22:34, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Coming to a consensus involves working with other the editors who have been discussing the addition of material w.r.t. controversies, and a controversy paragraph, above. It does not mean peremptorily blanking a paragraph before (as you admit) even familiarizing yourself with the current version of the article, in the hope of inserting some text of your own, which has no consensus. You do not OWN the article. For the purposes of consensus forming in this matter your voice has little or no weight, because you have a conflict of interest. Alexbrn (talk) 23:02, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

To remind yourself of the editing activities that are permitted for a conflicted editor, please see WP:COIU. 23:15, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

The same source that asserts the education is controversial also says that it is "renowned for its holistic...approach". Shall we include both statements? Why is one more article-worthy than the other? hgilbert (talk) 22:36, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

No, the purpose of this para is to summarize controversies per WP:LEAD, and this is merely to support the opening contention (which you challenged) that the topic is controversial (not that it really needs to be supported anyway). Switching into "positive PR" mode here would be as inappropriate as lacing the opening two paragraphs with negative criticism. If you want to add the renowned stuff somewhere in the body, though, feel free. I repeat - your COI problems mean you should really withdraw yourself from editing this content. Alexbrn (talk) 22:52, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

I see. So you suggest that when there is a source that, in the same sentence, presents positive and negative aspects, taking only the critical side is neutral, whereas reporting both the positives and the negatives violates NPOV. Can you explain the reasoning? hgilbert (talk) 02:14, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

That two statements are in the same sentence in the source is incidental. The source is a piece of neutral reportage that describes "the controversial Steiner method renowned for its holistic, co-educational approach". I am using this to bolster the contention that the topic is controversial, which is a fair use of the source. There is no mutuality of meaning between the clauses in the source which I am undermining by using it in this way. There are other words in the sentence: so what? There are other words close by in the preceding sentence, which I am not using. Similarly if this source was used earlier to support a claim that Waldorf education was "holistic and co-educational" there would be no need to mention that it was controversial right there. In general, it is bad style to intermix (what might be termed) "pro" and "con" clauses in running text, especially in the lede.

It is good practice to to segregate the cases for two positions; it is best practice to have some sort of narrative backbone and let the points emerge naturally in their allotted place: that is what the lede is aiming for — the plan of the lede is broadly: (1) a general description paragraph, (2) a "then and now" paragraph and (3) a summary of controversies paragraph (as suggested in WP:LEAD). To begin this paragraph (as you did in your edit) with "Though renowned for its holistic approach, Waldorf education is controversial in some respects" is bad:

1. Starting a paragraph with an introductory clause ("Though ...") is bad style — it sucks the life out of it
2. In a paragraph dedicated to controversy, starting with a mention of a "holistic" approach both undermines how that paragraph signals its intent to the reader, and is a bad non sequitur
3. You misrepresent the source by introducing a qualifier it doesn't have ("in some respects")

I mention these in some detail because I think it illustrates a problem with your editing here in general: every little edge, tweak and dodge is used to wage warfare on what you perceive as "negative" commentary, the result being the "brochure text" phenomenon which has been so frequently mentioned in this article's past. To me, the tactical nature of the changes you are suggesting here are reminiscent of the sort of copy edits done by PR people when preparing a statement. I am not saying this is bad faith; let me suggest to you that your COI makes you see everything through a lens of "positive" and "negative" which you must strive to balance, whereas for a disinterested editor such a thing as mentioning that the topic is "controversial" is just routine, and not even "negative". This, no doubt, is why Wikipedia has a policy on editors with a COI, which limits the type of edits they are permitted to make. Why do you keep violating it? Alexbrn (talk) 09:52, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

I am not promoting myself or my institutional affiliation, which is a particular school. No personal or financial advantage whatsoever can possibly accrue to me through editing this article. I have worked with many editors here to ensure that all standpoints represented in RSs are represented. I have added explicitly negative evaluations; for example, "The pedagogy's reliance on a single theory of child development has also been questioned and some Waldorf teachers' uncritical attitude toward anthroposophy criticized.[17]" and "The Dutch Inspectorate of Education reported that a significantly higher percentage of Waldorf elementary schools than state elementary schools visited were judged weak or very weak in the following areas: providing differentiated instruction and lesson plans, the curriculum meeting primary goals in mathematics and language arts, and pupil assessment". (There are others, as well.)

You appear to me to have a marked bias; you have objected to apparently non-evaluative/objective descriptors that are sourced in multiple academic citations (e.g. interdisciplinary), but are ready to include highly evaluative/subjective descriptors (e.g. controversial) sourced in a single citation drawn from a news article.

You keep turning substantive disagreements, on which I have repeatedly compromised, into personal questions over what you claim to be a COI. I will not remove the "W.e. is controversial" statement, but I believe it to be ridiculous -- there are certainly aspects that are controversial, but many aspects are not, and blanket statements are generally less helpful than differentiated/nuanced descriptors. hgilbert (talk) 11:50, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

I do not want to personalize this, and would appreciate it if did not. However, COIs are not determined by the nature of edits, but by the personal circumstances of an Editor. According to the ArbCom ruling (as well as to common sense) you have a conflict of interest. It doesn't help if you delude yourself otherwise.

Am I biased? Yes! I am biased in favour of making the Articles I edit neutral, comprehensive, and well-sourced. My queries of how sources have used have uncovered some misdirection and inaccuracy, and as a result the article quality has improved. Alexbrn (talk) 12:45, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Court documents not for publication

I am looking at this document cited in the Article and notice is is headed "not for publication" (it is published on the waldorfanswers.org site, which is a bit iffy isn't it?). Does anybody know whether this should be being reproduced on WP? It's obviously handy to have. Meanwhile, I'll see if I can find a new story verifying the fact of this legal outcome. Alexbrn (talk) 13:13, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm taking that out right away. It is a primary source completely inappropriate for citation. Binksternet (talk) 15:23, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I've got a secondary in place we can use. Alexbrn (talk) 15:27, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Next up, what about this one ? (not marked nfp, but still) Alexbrn (talk) 15:32, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Not for publication is a legal term (in use in California and many other states) that excludes the case from being used by later cases as case law. It does not mean anything else.

Why is a court's decision inappropriate for citation? hgilbert (talk) 23:35, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

I suppose a secondary source is always better than a primary. Are there secondary sources for the earlier court episodes. In fact, now the case has a "final" result is it worth even including these? (I have no preference - but I'm guessing they were added as the action progressed) Alexbrn (talk) 05:52, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

The Memorandum and Order from November 5, 2010 is the final judgment of the trial judge. It's an important summary of the case from its inception and, more importantly, a summary of the August 31, 2010 trial and the judge's reasoning for the final judgment, as stated in the article, that "anthroposophy is more akin to a methodology or approach to learning as opposed to a religious doctrine or organized set of beliefs". As such it's more important than the final appeal result. A cursory search of newspaper articles around November 2010 did not show any news article on the trial result. --EPadmirateur (talk) 06:30, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Okay - sounds like a good reason to keep. I do have a concern about including an editorial summary of legal texts though. Is there some secondary summary we could use? Alexbrn (talk) 06:40, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

I've found a press release which, being from an established law firm, is a reasonably good secondary source, and used that. I also replaced the text in the article based on the new source — what was there before (why does this not surprise me?) was slightly misdirecting in that it implied the judge had reached a conclusion based on evidence surrounding the subject in general, rather than the evidence presented at trial in particular (of which, incidentally, he seems rather contemptuous – particularly of that presented by the plaintiff). Alexbrn (talk) 08:32, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Normally a press release would be a bit suspect, and since this once comes from the lawyers defending the case this may even be COI-tainted. However, I think that law firms have to show exceptional care in their public statements, and of course their output is legally vetted ... therefore any legal commentary they offer is highly likely to be careful and accurate. In any case, having this is certainly better than having a primary text with an editor's interpretation (violating WP:PRIMARY). I have however added a template showing we could do with an even better source for this. Alexbrn (talk) 09:20, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I think the whole presentation by the plaintiffs was flawed and the appeals court thought they should have presented their case more straightforwardly. Therefore the appeals court felt this could not be a final conclusion: "the court was expressing no view as to whether anthroposophy could be considered a religion on the basis of a fuller or more complete record". --EPadmirateur (talk) 14:39, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I think that's now clear from the Article. Alexbrn (talk) 16:18, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

"Controversial" or "highly controversial" ?

After looking a bit more at whether Waldorf education is "controversial" and adding stuff in this vein to the Article (see in particular the first note to the third para), I wonder if in fact it would be more accurate to state that "Waldorf eduction is highly controversial". That is the phrase used by a couple of good sources ... and looking into recent UK controversies (again, see new material I have added around the Pseudoscience section) I'm beginning to think the "highly" intensifier may be justified. I'm wavering ... thoughts? Alexbrn (talk) 17:51, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Böhlau Verlag

The de:Böhlau Verlag is a major academic publisher in Germany. It should clearly qualify as a reliable source. I have removed the relevant RS tags hgilbert (talk) 18:11, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have put a reason in the tag. The issue here isn't the publisher, but the author, who is a "Course Director Waldorf Pedagogy, Danube University". Since the ArbCom outcome forbids "[a]nthroposophy related publications, especially by persons deeply involved in the movement such as teachers or theoreticians", (my emphasis) wouldn't this fall foul of that? Alexbrn (talk) 18:21, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Also this book had its RS tag removed and it surely is not from a "well-regarded academic press". a13ean (talk) 18:24, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Uh, and now I'm confused -- the first edition was published by a Harper print in '84 but is now in a specialty press. At any rate it was never an academic publisher. a13ean (talk) 18:29, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

The problem with that one is that the author is "a teacher and former board chair of the Rudolf Steiner Institute" ... I've put the tag back with a "reason" attribute in the template. Perhaps we could discuss the Böhlau Verlag case here ... ? Alexbrn (talk) 18:32, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

My understanding of the ArbComm's ruling, having followed the arguments throughout and then the subsequent clarifications, is that material by any anthroposophically oriented author is allowed but not if published by an anthroposophically oriented press or anthroposophical publication. Therefore both authors mentioned above have always been and I think should continue to be allowed when they are published in non-anthroposophical publications. That's the way the ArbComm set it up. I trust you can see the difference. --EPadmirateur (talk) 18:35, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

I hear what you say – but surely it's impossible to proceed on the basis of an unrecorded compact that has evolved over the years. I don't believe members of the ArbCom individually have the authority to undo decisions taken by them collectively (which are very clearly stated). Is there anything that can be pointed-to which has these clarifications? ... If it was on WP, there'll be a URL for it! I the meantime I suggest we proceed on the basis of the recorded ruling, but leave the rs tags in place (with a reason) until we get a clarification, if any, from the committee. I don't think any of the queried content is particularly bad, so as far as I am concerned there is no urgent need to delete it. Alexbrn (talk) 18:46, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Here is the discussion in which several key arbitrators took part. One summarized the situation as follows:

1. For all information in the articles that is uncontroversial, Anthroposophy related publications are to be considered reliable.
2. For any information in the articles, that (on an not clearly defined basis) can be considered controversial, Anthroposophy related publications are to be considered unreliable.
3. What is "controversial"? That is the big, not cleared out point, about which the Arbitration decision is not clear, and that creates the probably largest difficulty in the continued editing of the article.

I hope this clarifies the situation. hgilbert (talk) 11:24, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Sadly, not really – I don't think anything there conclusively interpets the original text. I suppose the definition of controversial for Wikipedia editing purposes is when editors disagree; that at least is a conservative (and therefore safe) test, I'd have thought. Alexbrn (talk) 12:30, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Incorrect use of Main template

The Template:Main is used in several places in the article, but a number of the uses are incorrect. It's to be used when the article contains a summary and it links to a sub-article.

When a Wikipedia article is large, it is often rewritten in summary style. This template is used after the heading of the summary, to link to the sub-article that has been (or will be) summarised. ... This template is not to be used as a substitute for inline links or as a "see also". Its usage should be restricted to the purpose described hereinbefore.

The cases that are in error are: Anthroposophy, Pseudoscience and Humorism. One that is correct is Curriculum of the Waldorf schools since the Curriculum section is a summary of the Waldorf curriculum. I will change these cases to inline links. --EPadmirateur (talk) 01:34, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Should these be changed to "see also" rather than deleted? Alexbrn (talk) 05:31, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Generally I think wiki-links should work as the reference. "See also" implies a topic that's related and on "the same level". For example, in the "Elements of pseudoscience" case the reference "See also Pseudoscience" is to something more general and should be a wiki-link. A "see also" in this case might be "See also Anthroposophical pseudoscience", if such an article or sub-article existed.

To summarize, in my view "Main" should be used for a sub-article to the section, "See also" should be used to a related article on "the same level" as the section, and wiki-links should be used for references to topics that are more general than the section. I hope that's clearer. --EPadmirateur (talk) 17:07, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Incorrect application of the term Humorism to Waldorf

There is a distinction between humorism and the four temperaments since the former is based on the ancient and medieval notion of the four bodily fluids and was used by physicians. The latter term is an interpretation or adaptation of this former idea applying to behaviors and personality traits. In anthroposophy and in Waldorf education, the latter concept is used and applied specifically to behaviors and personality traits. The term "humors" and the notion of the four bodily fluids is completely absent from Waldorf pedagogy. Associating the term "humorism" to Waldorf in the article, especially as the section heading, is completely incorrect. I will adjust the article accordingly. --EPadmirateur (talk) 01:51, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

According to the Grant article, the ideas applied are very specifically ancient Greek ones (though the terminology appears to be from the later four temperaments). Alexbrn (talk) 03:44, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

In fact the whole thrust of the Grant article seems to be that Steiner didn't just adopt contemporary ideas about the four temperaments, but had gone back to the ancients (Galen is mentioned in particular) to inform his view - hence his belief in a physical aspect of the categorization, consequent prescriptions of diet to treat imbalance, and so on. Grant chose to entitle his article "Steiner and the Humours ..." so it is perfectly fair (or at least, not 'completely incorrect') to follow the source in that. However, granted (ha!) he does not use the word "humorism" so perhaps a good half-way house is to entitle the section "Ancient Greek medicine" and then just have Humorism as a "see also" — I think that's about the best representation we can have of the source without writing a mini-essay. I've done this edit ... see what you think.

I have no idea whether Grant is right or not, but it's a solid gold source so we should at least represent it faithfully. Is there a counter-source? Alexbrn (talk) 08:44, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't have access to the Grant paper (perhaps you can point me to where to get a reprint) so I can't judge the basis for linking the humors to Steiner's use of the four temperaments in Waldorf education. I have never seen or heard of the use of the four humors (black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and blood) in Steiner -- perhaps in his medical lectures. But I'm not that well read. Perhaps you can supply the specific line of evidence Grant used.

In any case, bringing in the humors and ancient Greek medicine seems a bit WP:UNDUE emphasis, particularly as its own section. I think the entire sub-section on humors should be reduced to a qualification for the derivation of Steiner's use of the temperaments, with a link to the Humorism article. --EPadmirateur (talk) 16:47, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

I think you'll need a librarian to help you with the article ... it's rather intractable in electronic form (as I am using it) just a scan with no option to purchase individually.

The humours stuff is now only two sentences, which seems proportionate. I think it is needed as earlier a mention is made of how RS's anthroposophic ideas affect diet, and without this kind of content that statement is left unexplained.

As I understood Grant's piece, RS was not wholly invested in the classic "four substances" idea of the humours, but had adopted certain aspects of it. To risk summarising Grant, he was using the definition of his own day while retro-fitting some of the substance-based humour thinking of yore (I have put a quotation in the reference which is the key point Grant makes). So for example Grant says RS was concerned about the consumption of sweet things by sanguine children, as this related to the secretion of gall (aka yellow bile) by the liver. It may be that Waldorf teachers are applying RS's diet strictures without knowing what the background thinking was (if that matters).

On the 4 T's more generally, I am sure it is good to mention as it seems quite important; or at least covered in the supporting research. There are two sources supporting the text (and I could have added more but decided enough was enough). If children are categorized/fed/seated/treated according to thinking about this, then it's surely worth a few sentences. Alexbrn (talk) 17:43, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

There is a confusion here between Steiner's ideas and Waldorf education. There is no indication that Waldorf education uses the humours to recommend dietary measures; an offhand comment by Steiner about the possibility in principle of doing so is very different than a suggestion that this is actually ever used. I don't think the diet business belongs in this article. hgilbert (talk) 18:52, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Except, you're directly contradicting what the article says. Alexbrn (talk) 19:04, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Two sections on same theme

There are now two separate sections, both referring to temperament. I suggest we merge them into a single section.

The Grant article is a pretty poor source; it sounds as if he never visited an actual school. This article should focus on WE as it is, rather than every comment Steiner made in a teacher's meeting. For example, there is no reason to believe that anyone actually recommended or recommends dietary measures to change temperament; Steiner cited the possibility of doing so, but did not suggest that anyone contact the parents to recommend this, or to implement it in any other way. See page 32, which is evidently Grant's source

Ullrich gives a more informed presentation. I've added material from his work and attempted to form a single description. It may be shot down, but Grant is really hopelessly superficial on the subject. hgilbert (talk) 19:10, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

The Rist and Schneider article, which I've added as a reference but have not employed yet as a source, is also of high quality. hgilbert (talk) 19:21, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

And your authority for claiming the Grant article is a poor source is .... ? Alexbrn (talk) 21:33, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

To repeat the original question: Why are there two separate sections on the same subject?

In any case, there should be a balance between the three sources...independently of quality issues, we should not give unequal weight to any one of these. hgilbert (talk) 22:41, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

I've tried to merge the two sections again, including the material from Grant. I hope this works better for you. If not, perhaps you could either create your own merger, or justify why there should be two sections, both on the temperaments? hgilbert (talk) 22:54, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

The reason for having two sections is that Steiner's 4T's are not your usual 4T's - and sectional structure was attempting to make that clear by showing how he also incorporated earlier, humours-based, concepts. OTOH it did make for a bitty section, so your new merge is good - thanks! Alexbrn (talk) 06:55, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Two anthroposophy sections

There are now two anthroposophy sections, a major one at the start of the "Pedagogy" section, and a very small one at the conclusion of the curriculum section. They overlap and probably should be merged. hgilbert (talk) 10:09, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

The reason I kept the small one was because although anthroposophy's main role is as the basis of w.e. in general, readers may wonder if it is taught - hence the small section in the curriculum section saying it's not. Also Carroll's comment related to anthroposophy as a curriculum topic. I have no objection to removing the smaller section, so long as the Atlantis comment doesn't go MIA. Alexbrn (talk) 10:15, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Misleading wording

The following is misleading: Anthroposophic educationalists assert that "all the norms and forms of their educational practice are systematically deduced from the cosmic anthropology of the master" (i.e. Rudolf Steiner). The context makes it appear as if educationalists used this terminology. Ullrich wrote the wording, not an educator, and the term "master" to refer to Steiner appears to be purely his own here; he does not claim that educationalists use this term.

The quote is accurate in wording but misleading in context. I would suggest replacing the ending with "...from the cosmic anthropology" of Steiner. hgilbert (talk) 10:09, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

The term is quite striking, and my assumption is that Ullrich is implying this is what educationalists think – that is the point of his choice of words. He doesn't claim educationalists "use" this term – it's not as if the word is quoted. Interestingly, Carroll says something similar: "Some of the ideas of the Waldorf School are not Steiner's, but are in harmony with the master's spiritual insights." Perhaps this would go well next to the Ullrich quotation? (As an aside, I wonder – in real life, is not RS regarded as "the master" since he as an individual is the origin of some kind of revealed truth?) Alexbrn (talk) 10:38, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

The short answer is no, it was and is not normal for Steiner to be referred to as a "master", even though the term was at one point current enough for (usually disembodied) individuals in Theosophical circles. (Equivalent terms such as "guru" were and are also not used to refer to Steiner.) During his lifetime, and up to recently, when people referred to him respectfully they generally used the term "Doctor Steiner", or simply "the doctor", which referred to his academic title (he was a doctor of philosophy). In contemporary usage, W. teachers and anthroposophists generally drop the honorific completely, in line with our more informal times, and refer to him simply as Steiner or Rudolf Steiner.

This is why Ullrich's phrase appears so clearly his own, rather than an adaptation of existing usage. The gesture might be accurate enough for many teachers -- especially an older generation regarded him as a central authority in this way -- but the specific term appears to be of Ullrich's particular coinage, rather than to be in any way typical of "anthroposophical educationalists". hgilbert (talk) 11:11, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Interesting: a choice between "the master" or "the doctor". Dr Who fans would be very confused ;-)

Anyway, I think both Ullrich and Carroll use the term, and we can only assume they think about what they write and the meaning they wish to have, so we should preserve that and be careful not to damage it with our own research. Of course if you can produce some sourced material showing that nowadays RS is in some respects seen as errant, and/or that there countering philosophical bases for the education given, then we can include that too for a fuller picture. (In real life, my understanding is that it is difficult for followers of RS to question his teachings, as once one part of it is questioned the whole edifice begins to crumble, because that edifice is built on clairvoyantly obtained knowledge from the Akashic Record).

In the meantime I'll add the Carroll quotation, just as a reference for now, to reinforce the meaning and for another instance of the word "master" being used. Alexbrn (talk) 11:35, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

It's better now that you've attributed this to Ullrich. The ambiguity is sufficiently cleared up, I think hgilbert (talk) 16:50, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Elements of pseudoscience section

I have added the results of the PISA study in Austrian schools which balances the issues of elements of pseudoscience in science teaching. In fact, Waldorf students do well in the sciences compared to public schools.

I would also suggest that the sub-sub-heading for anthroposophy is redundant for this section. --EPadmirateur (talk) 19:57, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

I've moved this to the "Studies" section where it belongs. Science really shouldn't be included under pseudoscience. As for the anthro. section, as I mentioned above I have no objection deleting this so long as the Carroll comment finds a home. Alexbrn (talk) 20:13, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)This seems like it would be more relevant to the studies section. The fact that they report enjoying science more than students in public schools doesn't have much to do with the fact that some Waldorf students are also taught pseudoscientific concepts. a13ean (talk) 20:15, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

It's just interesting, given the apparent infusion of pseudoscience in Waldorf science teaching, that (1) Waldorf students excel in science compared to public school students and (2) Waldorf teaching methods are recommended as a model for other schools. OTOH, I take your point that the only valid balancing material would be a statement or other evidence dealing with this specific issue. --EPadmirateur (talk) 20:33, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

The PISA test showed a higher level of understanding in the sciences for Waldorf students. This is surely relevant to a claim that they are being taught pseudoscience. hgilbert (talk) 20:39, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Some reference to this is clearly appropriate; the difference in ability (not just enjoyment) found was quite large. I suggest something like Both the 2006 and 2009 PISA studies found that Waldorf students were significantly more capable in the sciences than students from state schools, however; see the study section of this article for details.hgilbert (talk) 20:54, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

I can't see any connection or relevance. What's your logic? Alexbrn (talk) 21:13, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) This appears to be cherry picking the best points from this study, and similar issues have been discussed previously with respect to the German schools. You wish to say the above, but this includes the BMS (Berufsbildenden Mittleren Schulen) -- the Austrian equivalent of the german Haupt- and Gesamptschule or vocational trade schools. We could just have easily used the same source to say that Waldorf schools beat out the future machine tool operators, but not the future university students. If you compare the Waldorf schools to the non-vocational schools they do significantly worse. The significance of the study is also very limited -- ~150 students taken only from the largest Waldorf schools, who have a much stronger socioeconomic background than the average Austrian student, in addition to the other concerns mentioned by the authors. The only statistically clear thing that can be said from this study is that Waldorf students self-report enjoying science classes more than their public school peers. a13ean (talk) 21:14, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

I think you missed the point. The article is chiefly about one study, to which you are referring, but also speaks of the PISA study: "Pisa-Studie, nach der Waldorfschüler weit überdurchschnittliche naturwissenschaftliche Kompetenzen aufzuweisen haben." I think you missed this. hgilbert (talk) 04:21, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

And the next line is "Kausalität einwandfrei nachzuweisen sei allerdings fast nie möglich, warnte Schleicher. Zu welchem Prozentsatz ein erfolgreiches Schulprojekt auf die Pädagogik oder auf von vornherein bessere Startbedingungen der Schüler zurück führe ist, das sei in aller Regel nicht klar feststellbar." This again strikes me as cherry-picking. Should we also include every single study that reports worse science scores for Waldorf students in this section -- for example that they do worse than the university-bound austrian students? No, this is about pseudoscience. a13ean (talk) 05:50, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

I have removed this as the case hadn't been made. Is it necessary to mention WP:COIU yet again? Alexbrn (talk) 06:03, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

It's amusing that you claim bias over material from a PISA study, whereas Carroll's wild speculation is welcome. I've tagged the section for NPOV concerns. hgilbert (talk) 12:38, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

The problem's not the study, but the repetition of the study out-of-position in a way which makes no sense. Especially when consensus on the talk page is that it should not be done, and even more especially when that edit is done – in the face of WP guidelines – by an ArbCom-sanctioned editor with a COI. You are in no position to judge, let alone label, what is POV or NPOV because of that COI. Alexbrn (talk) 12:45, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

I have to agree with hgilbert here. I said earlier: "It's just interesting, given the apparent infusion of pseudoscience in Waldorf science teaching, that (1) Waldorf students excel in science compared to public school students and (2) Waldorf teaching methods are recommended as a model for other schools." I have twice asked for balancing information be added to this section. I agree with hgilbert that omitting available information that balances the assertion that Waldorf teaches pseudoscience in the sciences is non-neutral WP:NPOV. --EPadmirateur (talk) 22:56, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

But it's an artificial notion of "balance" that sees the article in terms of "plus points for Waldorf" v "negative points for Waldorf" and seeks to get a score draw in each section, at the expense of the Article's structural logic. As I've mentioned above I think this approach is to view the article in terms of its PR impact, rather than as an encyclopedia entry. Despite asking, nobody has explained what they think the relevance of the PISA study is to Pseudoscience. Alexbrn (talk) 04:59, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Per WP:NPOV, we do not try and artificially balance the two sides in a debate when one side clearly predominates. If positive information is stronger, let it shine. If negative information is stronger, make sure the reader knows. Binksternet (talk) 05:28, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes – in the pseudoscience section we've got what the skeptics claim and how the schools responded. Neutral. I don't see how bringing in commentary on a data set from several years earlier, in another country, and on something other than pseudoscience, is relevant. I suspect the desire to do so is the effect of seeing things through the "COI lens" whereby everything is seen in terms of what it might imply about how desirable or not Waldorf education is, and so seeks to offset supposed negative implications with supposed positive ones. Alexbrn (talk) 05:47, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

There are two editors who feel the information is highly relevant. It comes from excellent sources -- 2 PISA studies and many articles about these. I wonder if you might review WP:Good faith?

There is absolutely nothing artificial about including studies that relate to claims being made. There is no danger of this creating imbalance in this section when there are four paragraphs of critique and we are suggesting including one paragraph of not praise, but objective evidence.

From Wikipedia:Criticism#Avoid_sections_and_articles_focusing_on_criticisms_or_controversies: Likewise, sections within an article dedicated to negative criticisms are discouraged. Topical or thematic sections are superior to sections devoted to criticism. Best practice is to incorporate positive and negative material into the same section. (emphasis in original) hgilbert (talk) 07:32, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Good faith flies out of the window when there is a COI (presumably why COI-tainted editors are encouraged not to edit). Of course pertinent material should be clustered together (both sides of the argument), which is precisely why the schools' responses are included here; but importing irrelevant information is just bizarre. Do you think, in the section describing how Steiner lectured at Oxford we should include "However some accuse Steiner of holding racist views" to "balance" that section? Have you proposed that the pseudoscience stuff be included alongside the positive studies to "balance" them? (tellingly, no). Nobody has even attempted to explain the relevance of this material — the argument appears to me to be "we need some good news to balance out the bad news". Alexbrn (talk) 07:54, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

I see. The connection between suggesting that a school does not have an effective science education program, and evidence that it does indeed have an effective program, seems clear to me. hgilbert (talk) 08:14, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

The section is not primarily "suggesting that a school does not have an effective science education program". That may be however what you primarily take from it (the COI lens in action again, revealing things as "good" or "bad" for Waldorf PR). The section primarily relates how some UK skeptics are criticizing some UK schools for teaching pseudoscience. People will take this in different ways — not everybody is a skeptic; some people will think this as a good thing. But even if your interpretation is justified, how is the PISA study related to the UK schools of today? Are you assuming the way things are taught in the UK in 2012 is exactly the same as the way things were taught in Austria in 2005? What you are proposing is to take one implication ("Steiner schools bad at science") and try and offset it with another implication ("but wait! Steiner schools good at science"). That is not encyclopedia writing, it's spin. Alexbrn (talk) 08:45, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

The PISA study was not limited to Austrian students; the sources says "European"

These are various aspects of the science curriculum under discussion. I find it bizarre that you suggest the teaching of pseudoscience might be a positive thing; the critics clearly did not mean it as a neutral characterization, and your word "criticizing" points this up clearly. hgilbert (talk) 12:48, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Of course the skeptics intended it as adverse criticism, but others may see it as a good thing — presumably the teachers teaching pseudoscience think it's a good thing; and presumably a good number parents are okay with it. Pseudoscience is quite popular. The school had arguments in response to the skeptics and those are reproduced in the Article. They didn't choose to mention PISA studies. Alexbrn (talk) 13:18, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Proposed hypothetical edit

In the light of the above conversation about the Pseudoscience section, let us consider a parallel case. How about this edit ...

In the "Origins and history" section mention is made of how Steiner spoke at Oxford. I think this serves to give a certain positive impression, lending Steiner a veneer of academic respectability by mentioning him in the context of a famous seat of learning. The section needs to be balanced. To do this I propose adding, after the Oxford paragraph, the following: "In modern times however, Steiner's reception by universities has been less welcoming. The dean of Stockholm university has labelled the Waldorf syllabus 'literature which conveys scientific inaccuracies that are worse than woolly; they are downright dangerous.'" If we don't do this, the article will send out a too-positive message about Univiersities' stance on Steiner.

In my view this edit would be a bad idea – although the case could be made for it, in the same way it's being made above. This kind of edit is torturing the article to impart a bogus kind of PR-style balance - and would end, if carried to its logical conclusion, with every non-bland fragment of the article being combined with every other. Alexbrn (talk) 11:12, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

In my opinion the Oxford business could go. I don't know who put it in, but it certainly wasn't me. I find your interpretation unlikely, by the way -- I doubt it affects his level of respectability, but maybe it's so -- in any case, I think the sentence belongs to the separate History of WE article, rather than here.

It is, of course, a wholly different thing, however; both edits you mention could go together in a Reception section, but not in a "origins and history" section. Here we are discussing aspects of a science curriculum - and pseudoscience also refers to problems with the science curriculum, as pseudohistory would refer to problems with the history curriculum, pseudolinguistics with... and so on. Note WP's explicit guidelines on avoiding sections purely devoted to criticism, quoted above. hgilbert (talk) 12:44, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

The section primarily relates how some UK skeptics are criticizing some UK schools for teaching pseudoscience, it is you who are trying to generalize this into "discussing aspects of a science curriculum" as an opening gambit to get some positive PR in to offset the perceived overall negativity (even if your proposed addition is based on irrelevant historial data).

This is not a "criticism section" BTW, as it includes the school response — and as I mention above some people will be cheering in approval of the teaching of pseudoscience, crying "yeah! that's right ... we don't want no stinking rigid scientific hegemony; vive la difference!" (there are quite a few people like that, I find, who edit Wikipedia). Alexbrn (talk) 13:37, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

You say, "The section primarily relates how some UK skeptics are criticizing some UK schools." Defining it in this way would clearly make for a criticism section, even if you include responses to that criticism. As I suggested above, Wikipedia encourages organizing thematically: what is the theme here? If it's science, then the other information should be included. If it's the reception W.E. is receiving, then it should move down to the Reception section.

Your suggestion that what you repeatedly have termed criticism (and I agree with this categorization) might be taken positively by some people, is irrelevant. The criterion is not the reader's response, which is clearly unpredictable, but the nature of the material. hgilbert (talk) 19:46, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I think you have a novel view of what a criticism section is; by including the response this is not any kind of criticism section. Those are typically long bills of complaint without response, in my experience. Criticism need not be adverse; criticism can be positive too. I am intrigued by your suggestion the section has an innate "nature" distinct from its how it is received. How do you work that out? Alexbrn (talk) 19:56, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Substitute the word "theme" for "nature". I hope that helps.

If you are limiting the subject to "how some skeptics are criticizing some schools" -- your own description of the section's theme, above -- then I would say that's pretty clearly a criticism section. hgilbert (talk) 22:49, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Studies Section

this item ADHD A 2010 study of 61 children exhibiting symptoms of Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) concluded that "children with ADHD symptoms receiving anthroposophic treatment had long-term improvement of symptoms and quality of life."[110] seems to have no relation to Waldorf Education. Why is it in the long boring section on studies? --Rocksanddirt (talk) 19:11, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Concerns over editing and advocacy in this article

Prompted by discussion above, I am providing some details of the content and behaviour problems I see with this article. [Update 2012-12-14: Hgilbert has added some inline responses, for readability I have coloured these green]

COI & Talk Page behaviour

1. Hgilbert was asked by IRWolfie- and JzG about a possible conflict of interest on his talk page. In the discussion that followed, Hgilbert claimed "I edit, without giving preference to the one over the other". Hgilbert subsequently deleted [4] the discussion with the misleading edit summary "archive increasingly pointless discussion" (the content was not archived).
2. After raising the topic [5] of a "Conflict of Interest problem", Alexbrn placed a COI warning on Hgilbert's Talk page. Hgilbert deleted this [6]. In the discussion that followed on Talk:Waldorf education Hgilbert implied that he had been cleared of COI by an ArbCom ruling "I am no more or less conflicted than an employee of the public school system would be in editing an article on public education" [7]. The comment was countered by Binksternet, who quoted the ArbCom ruling text.[8]
3. Hgilbert characterized the raising of COI as "personal attack" ("Instead of getting involved in personal attacks, let's focus on the content, OK?").[9]
4. At the same time Hgilbert claimed, falsely, that Alexbrn had been "adding what is clearly personal opinion in the guise of fact" (my emphasis) to the Article. The problem was instead that Alexbrn has not provided an inline attribution for sourced content which Hgilbert disagreed with. [10]

   Carroll explicitly says that "it is likely that some of...". This is clearly an opinion. I'm definitely puzzled how someone could call this statement one of fact. hgilbert (talk) 00:20, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

5. Hgilbert has stated or implied that he has no COI: "I have worked with many editors here to ensure that all standpoints represented in RSs are represented"[11]; see also reference to "personal questions over what you claim to be a COI" (my emphasis) later at the same URL.

From User talk page: Users may freely remove comments from their own talk pages, though archiving is preferred. They may also remove some content in archiving. The removal of a warning is taken as evidence that the warning has been read by the user. This specifically includes both registered and unregistered users.

Denying sources

Hgilbert has opposed/disrupted the use of authoritative sourced material with which he disagrees, on the basis of nothing more than his own opinion:

1. The work of educationalists Siraj-Blatchford and Whitebread's was described by Hgilbert as "idiosyncratic", "wildly inaccurate" and "a bugbear"[12]. When his argument to suppress the material was lost, it was stated "the whole claim is so ridiculous that it is really not worth discussing further." [13] The content in question was subject to a sequence of attemped POV-pushing edits (see POV pushing section below).
2. Hgilbert applied a RS template to a statement issued by the British Humanist Association with the edit summary: "not a peer-reviewed publication, controversial claim".[14]

   Is this a peer-reviewed publication? The arbitration is clear about the need for these to support anything but sheer matters of fact.

3. Hgilbert took issue with a scholarly article published in the BJES, describing it as a "poor source".[15]
4. Hgilbert takes exception to the use of the published material written by Robert Todd Carroll as a source, calling it "sheer speculation" [16] and "wild speculation" [17].

   See above. Saying that something is "likely" without providing any evidence appears to be, indeed, sheer speculation. Note that this is discussion on the talk page that is being objected to here!

Coordinated editing

When Hgilbert has had edits reverted and it appears things are running against him, he has a tendency to contact known friendly editors to lend assistance. There is no evidence of him voluntarily using normal dispute resolution channels.

1. User EPadmirateur is another editor with a high proportion of editing activity focused on Steiner, the occult, anthroposophy and Waldorf-related topics, dating from his earliest edits in 2007.[18]
2. Whether EPadmirateur has a COI is unknown.
3. On occasion, Hgilbert has contacted EPadmirateur via his Talk page, referencing Steiner/Waldorf-related topics, sometimes with a suggestion (in the text or the edit summary) as to what he thinks needs doing. This is followed by sequences of editing and/or reverting by EPadmirateur and Hgilbert, applying to the content that has been indicated [19] [20] [21]
4. Similar approaches have been made twice to Rocksanddirt, most recently within the last few days: [22] [23]
5. On one occasion, Hgilbert notes he needs help to avoid exceeding the 3RR limit [24] — there follows an edit war (see Waldorf education history around 18 May 2012) with the two teamed editors pooling reverts to "win".

Aggressive editing

Despite being under ArbCom sanction and having a COI, Hgilbert edits aggressively (against the recommendation of the ArbCom ruling, and of WP:COIU).

1. Within the last few days, Hgilbert has reverted, [25] blanked,[26] and heavily edited[27] content.

   The "reversion" of content is actually not reversion of content at all, but re-inclusion of a NPOV template, which Alexbrn had removed. The template explicitly specifies that it should not be removed until the dispute is resolved.

   I did initially object to the lede paragraph as written, but all the same content was in the article later, where it appropriately belongs, and where I did not object to it.

   Is that really a "heavy edit"?

POV pushing

One of the more subtle and insidious methods of advocacy is civil POV pushing, by which a sequence of apparently reasonable and innocuous edits become, on closer inspection and with cumulative effect, deleterious to the neutrality of an Article. Analyzing it inevitable requires descent to the level of minutiae, at or below phrase level. Here is an attempt to show how it has affected this article...

1. On 28 November 2012, Alexbrn introduced [28] new content into the article: Followers of Steiner Waldorf education take the position that children should play only with 'natural, non-manufactured materials' and so maintain that play should not involve computerized or electrically-powered devices or items made of plastic, such as Lego. The Steiner belief system is, however, illogical since some manufactured items, such as woollen cloth, are permitted for play purposes.
2. The addition was sourced, and the wording used close to that of the source.
3. Hgilbert's first assault on this content came in an edit with the summary "merge to EC" [29]. The passage was reworded as follows: Followers of the education take the position that children should play only with 'natural, non-manufactured materials'{{disputed}} and maintain that play should not involve computerized or electrically-powered devices or items made of plastic, such as Lego. Sira-j-Blatchford and Whitebread have criticized the education for being inconsistent, since some manufactured items, such as woolen cloth, are permitted for play purposes.

   A shocking change.

4. Note four changes: a "dispute" tag has been introduced (despite the content's WP:V goodness); the phrase "Steiner belief system" has been removed; the word "illogical" has been changed to "inconsistent"; and an in-line attribution ("Sira-j-Blatchford and Whitebread have criticized") has been introduced. This text now becomes the only text in the section (indeed in all the stages of education sections) with the distancing effect of inline attribution. Note that other statements like "Waldorf teachers have been cited for their level of personal commitment to their pupils" are not inline attributed.

   The non-manufactured materials claim is ridiculous.

5. The next change comes from EPadmirateur, as part of the process of trying to clear the "disputed" tag introduced by Hgilbert, in an edit called "revised to clarify" [30]: Waldorf teachers generally hold that young children should play only with natural materials and that play should not involve computerized or electrically-powered devices or items made of plastic, such as Legos. According to Siraj-Blatchford and Whitebread, this restriction includes 'non-manufactured materials' which appears to them illogical since some manufactured items, such as woolen cloth, are permitted for play purposes.
6. Note with this edit we have a qualification ("Waldorf teachers generally ...") introduced. We now have further distancing ("According to Sira-j-Blatchford and Whitebread ...") building on what went before, along with the disclaiming effect of "which appears to them illogical since" (my emphasis).

   Here is a claim that is only made by one author, and which there is reason to doubt is more widely held. It is included in the article, attributed to the author. That's all. What a tempest in a teapot!

And so the work is complete. The original text is now qualified, distanced and attributed in a way that makes it stand out as slightly questionable in relation to the surrounding text ... just some academics' opinion, not fit to be stated in Wikipedia's voice. In a parallel passage Hgilbert took another attempt at spinning these educationalists' work by downgrading their statement further into something they merely "feel" [31]. Alexbrn (talk) 20:08, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

The term could equally be "believe", "think", etc. The claim that something is "more a reaction against aspects of nineteenth-century industrialization than it is a reasoned assessment of twenty-first century children's need" is surely the author's evaluation, and can be reasonably denoted as such. hgilbert (talk) 11:11, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

• By the way, if you see someone gaming the system like at [32], then you can still take it to WP:ANEW for edit warring, and show the gaming. Why post this here? Why not at WP:COIN? IRWolfie- (talk) 21:34, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
  • The reason not to take this dispute to WP:COIN is that it is barely a dispute, and the boomerang effect might not go where Alexbrn intends. This is a long article with lots of crappy sources about a subject that is very esoteric to many. ANYONE who spends any significant time here has a COI, simply because we have feeling for the subject. Are we all perfect editors? no. Do some of us keep at the article trying to make it better? yes. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 20:12, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Science

I have started a science section in the curriculum area, since one editor feels that the pseudoscience subsection should not be sullied with material about science itself. hgilbert (talk) 14:29, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Peer reviewed sources

The 2003 review of WS science was not published in a peer-reviewed publication; it fails the strict arbitration guidelines here. (It actually appeared in an anthroposophical publication, and so is specifically excluded.) hgilbert (talk) 14:03, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I notice you have been aggressively editing the article again, removing content you don't like, and without discussion. The material in question in not from an anthroposophical source, and is quoted in peer-reviewed and academically vetted secondary sources, tending to raise its level of WP:V goodness. You yourself were cherry-picking its findings through another article in an earlier edit. Please stop this COI POV pushing. Alexbrn (talk) 14:08, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

What is quoted in peer-reviewed sources, may be used here. The original article clearly fails the arbitration guidelines. Can you please review the guidelines, which are clear here?

BTW: Using what qualified sources reported about a study is not "cherry-picking its findings". If anything, those sources did the "cherry-picking" ...which is what third-party reviews are for. hgilbert (talk) 14:12, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, you cherry-picked the cherry-picking: which is quite a feat! I have read the arbitration ruling; you are misrepresenting it to try and support your POV pushing. Again. Alexbrn (talk) 14:16, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

"As applied to this matter, except with respect to information which is not controversial, material published in Anthroposophy related publications, especially by persons deeply involved in the movement such as teachers or theoreticians, are considered self published and thus not reliable sources." What is unclear about this? The 2003 study was published in an anthroposophical publication. The people who did the study were connected to WE hgilbert (talk) 15:28, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

This is a curious claim. Exactly what was in the qualified source that I did not use, but that you would like to see here? Since I added both positive and negative material, I'm very puzzled by what your problem is. hgilbert (talk) 14:23, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

No mention of e.g. "very little time was spent on exploring the differences between students’ perceptions and considering different answers and solutions, which also could be expected in a phenomenological teaching approach". As an aside, this article ("Doing phenomenology in science education: a research review") is very strange - it reads at times like a product of machine translation. Alexbrn (talk) 15:20, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

The passage mentions both what time was spent on, and what it wasn't spent on. We could include both, but this seemed too much. What do you think? hgilbert (talk) 15:25, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I think we should use the original monograph as printed by the university and/or Lyons' piece on it, rather than pick out bits from this incidental mention of the work, in an article who purpose is, narrowly, to consider the role of phenomenology in science education. I also think, per WP:COIBEST you should stop editing the article and stop trying to argue positions on this Talk page. Alexbrn (talk) 15:31, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Structure section

The structure section is badly organized at the moment, apparently out of a desire to highlight the anthroposophical foundations (and there primarily a critical comment about these). I don't want to get into an edit war over this, and unless a third editor wants to weigh in, I see no way forward here. hgilbert (talk) 14:09, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

The way forward is for you to read WP:COIU and abide by it, rather than continually pushing your advocacy agenda with COI-tainted edits. Comments from disinterested editors are of course welcome. As to the section structure: if something is "the basis" for all that follows, it makes perfect sense to have it as a leading section. Alexbrn (talk) 14:13, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

From your tone and the nature of your edits, I'm not sure that you are playing the role of a "disinterested editor". I wonder if we can work together to balance our points of view? Perhaps WP:Good faith has a role to play here. hgilbert (talk) 14:20, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Why don't you abide by WP:COIU? Alexbrn (talk) 14:21, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

We both should be working very hard to ensure a neutral tone. We also should be working very hard to abide by WP:Good faith hgilbert (talk) 14:26, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

As I have written before, sadly good faith flies out of the window when an editor with a COI is on the scene, since you simply cannot be considered sufficiently impartial to edit the article (as evidenced by your patterns of bad behaviour). Read WP:BESTCOI. Alexbrn (talk) 14:34, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Map showing Lemuria

The map in the Curriculum section implies that it is a map given by Steiner, showing the geographical position of Lemuria. There is no attribution given to this map. I have never heard of or seen any map given by Steiner of the position of any prehistoric region that Steiner mentioned in his lectures or books. Therefore it is completely misleading to include this in the article. --EPadmirateur (talk) 20:45, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Err, what implies it's Steiner's map? Any more than the picture of a Steiner doll implies it was made by Steiner? And what's misleading anyway - a mythical continent is a mythical continent isn't it? Alexbrn (talk) 21:08, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Your caption quote implies that the map depicts what Steiner asserted about Lemuria. Even the characterization of a "mythical continent" is not accurate. What specifically does Lyons describe as Steiner's view of Lemuria and what is it based on? --EPadmirateur (talk) 22:10, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it implies it. Lemuria is a concept that has a common usage (as covered in the article on Wikipedia) - we should use that unless there is some source that says Steiner used it in a particular way (is there?). Illustrations are meant to, well, illustrate. Adding "(Not Steiner's map: image for illustration purposes only)" would overcome this objection, but seems a bit ... odd. WP:PERTINENCE states "images should look like what they are meant to illustrate, even if they are not provably authentic images" (WP's italic), and "effort should ... be made to improve quality and choice of images or captions in articles rather than favoring their removal". Have you got a good image of Lemuria; or even better one of Atlantis? I imagine there are some fantastic colourful picture of that! Alexbrn (talk) 22:33, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

As I said, I have never heard of or seen any map given by Steiner of the position of any prehistoric region that Steiner mentioned in his lectures or books. Where did the map you posted come from? Was any source given? What specifically does Lyons describe as Steiner's view of Lemuria and what is it based on? What's the specific source that the geological epochs of Lemuria and Atlantis are being taught in Waldorf schools? I don't have access to the dissertation. Is it available on-line? --EPadmirateur (talk) 01:23, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

It is pretty odd to illustrate the curriculum of the Waldorf schools with a map that is not used in Waldorf schools. Surely there is a more appropriate illustration. hgilbert (talk) 11:15, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

The Lyons piece can be obtained from the CSUC library server here. Lemuria is seen as a geological thing, so the map makes a good illustration. Alexbrn (talk) 06:12, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Pedagogy section: request for comment

I'd like to invite comments on how the pedagogy section should best be structured. I personally would prefer to see an overview of the internal structure of the education come first, and the philosophical basis for this follow. (This is how the article was structured until recently.) What do others feel about this? hgilbert (talk) 23:07, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the structure should come first (what is the pedagogy) and then the basis (where do these ideas come from). Right now the section starts out with

Anthroposophic educationalists assert, according to Ullrich, that 'all the norms and forms of their educational practice are systematically deduced from the cosmic anthropology of the master.' Anthroposophy underpins the school organisation, curriculum and pedagogy (and frequently, the design of the school buildings, as well as pupil and teacher health and diet). Oppenheimer writes that at one Californian teacher training center (at which students are expected to have undergraduate degrees), virtually every text used was written by Steiner or another anthroposophist.

which basically says nothing about what the pedagogy is about. That appears only much later, after sub-sections about Spirituality and the Four Temperaments. It's confusing to readers and unencyclopedic. It also gives a very distorted view of what Waldorf education is about. --EPadmirateur (talk) 01:35, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

It's COI/NPOV to edit from some preconceived notion "of what Waldorf education is about" which must not be "distorted". It makes perfect sense to explain something starting with its basis and then proceeding to refinements and instances of things deriving from that "basis", otherwise when a reader gets to the wording "The structure of the education follows Steiner's ideas about child development", they won't be fully in the picture.

I'll be very plain. My concern is that there is a push here to "bury" what is perceived as "negative" material about Waldorf, but moving it later in the article, at the expense of any common sense notion of good article structure. It is especially worrying when the edit is being pushed by a COI-tainted editor (against WP guidelines, as I have repeatedly pointed out) and another editor who has a record of assisting his edits, even in contravention of WP policy. What further concerns me is that it is documented that Waldorf teachers are sometimes instructed to hide/downplay anthroposophy, and so I suspect that this push is an instance of that tactic. EPadmirateur — do you have a conflict of interest to declare? Alexbrn (talk) 11:43, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

We're talking about restructuring the article for clarity. That's all. In an article on WE, it makes sense to describe the education before describing the philosophy out of which it was born. There are links to that philosophy right in the lede, and the subsection on the anthroposophical basis can remain, but in an appropriate location.

In an article on science, one would hardly expect to begin with an extensive discussion of its epistemological basis. Philosophers might be fascinated, but the normal reader would be expecting to read about science, not epistemology. So here, as well. hgilbert (talk) 11:50, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't agree, and I don't trust the impulse behind the suggestion. Look at the Montessori article: theory before practice. That's basic. (Off topic) might I suggest to you that your thought processes are affected by your closeness to anthroposophy where, in contrast, ideas are derived from the specific (occult revelation) and then generalised into theory. Alexbrn (talk) 12:02, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Montessori's ideas generally aren't treated in that article, but rather those that are directly pedagogical. This is what the Structure subsection does here; it looks at the theoretical underpinnings of Waldorf education. These have nothing to do with any occult revelation, but are very similar to Piaget's ideas about child development.

Perhaps your impressions about Waldorf education have been formed without any contact with it? I am puzzled why you have such clear opinions about it. hgilbert (talk) 19:47, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

(Off topic) Well, since you're sort of needling me for some personal information, and since I've asked EPadmirateur for a COI declaration, I suppose it's only fair I give it you.

For the record, I have no connection with Waldorf-Steiner education, anthroposophic organizations, or any organization that has counter interests, or which has even expressed any views on Waldorf education, Steiner, anthroposophy, or related topics. My knowledge of Waldorf education (such as it is) comes from having had one child educated in that system for a number of years, with fair success (another child was educated in "conventional" education). This gives me some experience of both "sides". As for all educational systems it has - in my view - good points and bad points. I do not consider myself a pro-Waldorfian, and I do not identify with the shrill and intolerant anti-Waldorfian skeptics, well-established in the US and growing in the UK. The problem, as I see it, with Waldorf education is that it's 80% reasonable and 20% bollocks - almost entirely as a result of some of the batshit-crazy ideas that Rudolf Steiner had; however, as gurus go, I consider RS to have been one of the better ones, with interesting ideas, integrity and a pro-humanity outlook. If only Waldorf education could cut the RS knot, though ... especially for hard science ...

My problems with the article come from (as a parent, or general reader) not seeing basic informative stuff I thought should be there, especially about the controversies. It's not a question of POV, it's a question of: does this article cover the things one would expect it to? The answer was, emphatically, no.

My issue about COI is that when I first started editing Wikipedia it was on a subject I was closely connected with. I had a COI. Of course, I didn't see it, I believed I was neutral, and I edited the articles anyway. I know very well what it's like to have a COI and I can see very well how it works having "been there". Alexbrn (talk) 22:16, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for sharing honestly. I did not mean to be fishing for personal information, but it does help to understand your perspective.

Incidentally, I agree with you totally about ensuring that the science curriculum is up to date, and that it should not incorporate ideas whose only support is that they stem from the founder of the Waldorf approach. hgilbert (talk) 00:09, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Two editors feel that the old structure is better. One feels that the new one, which is his work, is better. No one else has weighed in on this. It seems that we should return to the old structure. Any reason not to? hgilbert (talk) 11:59, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

There is no consensus to change, and Wikipedia does not operate by "vote". I object to any such change being made. Alexbrn (talk) 12:59, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

There are two editors who see the current structure as misleading and unacceptable. Do you have a proposal that will establish a consensus here?

My vision of consensus: you wished to add new content and rework the structure. We are accepting the new content but wish to preserve a structure that is far clearer to the reader. That sounds like a reasonable compromise. hgilbert (talk) 13:41, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

There is one editor (me) who wishes to preserve the article as-is, and objects to the change, backed-up by argument and example; there is another (you) who has no weight in the debate, since you have a COI and a history of POV-pushing, and are participating here against the recommendations of WP:COIBEST and WP:COIU; there is another editor who has a history of being recruited by you to assist in POV-pushing, and who has offered nothing recent in this "debate". Consensus is defined as a lack of sustained opposition by a significant portion of stakeholders. Alexbrn (talk) 13:58, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

"As is" -- meaning according to your last edit.

You are also involved in Waldorf education, by your own admission. Let's try to find a mutually acceptable solution. hgilbert (talk) 13:48, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

In the case of dispute, the status quo rules.

I have not "admitted" I am "involved in" Waldorf education. That is an outright lie.

The "solution" for this is for you - and any other COI-tainted editors - to follow WP guidelines and withdraw from editing this article in a POV-pushing manner. Alexbrn (talk) 14:33, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

It was out-of-bounds for Hgilbert to say that Alexbrn is "involved" with Waldorf. That is ridiculous.

Regarding the pedagogy section, I find it reasonable to present the material in the following order:

2 Pedagogy and ideas of child development

2.1 Anthroposophical basis

2.1.1 Spirituality

2.1.2 Four temperaments

2.2 Structure

2.3 Looping

2.4 Pre-school and kindergarten: birth to age 6 or 7

2.5 Elementary education: age 6/7 to 14

2.6 Secondary education

This arrangement first tells the reader the basis for what is taught; it follows the chronological basis for WE in that the theories came before the practice. It makes sense. Binksternet (talk) 16:46, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the outline. Unfortunately the result of this order is unencyclopedic, if you consider what each section says. I also have to say it is POV-pushing. To summarize the contents of each section:

2 Pedagogy and ideas of child development

2.1 Anthroposophical basis: Everything in Waldorf education is based on the weird ideas of "the master". Teachers study only these weird ideas. The weird ideas include: the innate spirit coming from the ocean of God; karma; reincarnation; the human being as physical body, etheric body (taught in middle school), astral body (taught in adolescence) and Ego; teachers helping each child's soul and spirit grow. These weird ideas are explicitly not part of the Waldorf curriculum but parents feel they are being deceived about the true secret basis of Waldorf education, because Anthroposophy and Waldorf are really cults and the teachers really do teach the weird ideas in a hidden form because they don't want to push them onto the students.

2.1.1 Spirituality: Waldorf education is infused with spirituality (another weird idea), including a wide range of religious traditions, depending on what culture the school is in, including celebrating the festivals of the particular spiritual heritage.

2.1.2 Four temperaments: Waldorf teachers categorize their pupils' character and behavior according to the weird ancient Greek ideas of melancholic, sanguine, phlegmatic and choleric which determine their behavior. The temperaments must be balanced (because one-sidedness of temperaments limits the student) by more weird ideas like avoiding eggs and pastry.

2.2 Structure: here we finally get some idea of what the pedagogical theory is: children are regarded as threefold beings (spirit, soul and body), who unfold in three developmental stages of seven years, each with its own requirements and sub-stages, something like Piaget. Early childhood is addressed through imitation, elementary through imagination and art, and secondary through intellectual understanding and ethical ideals. Emphasis on festivals and ceremonies (oh, that's why they try to work within the students' spiritual heritage). From the same heritage as Comenius et al., involving imagination (already mentioned) and collaborative reasoning.

2.3 Looping: the main teacher stays with the elementary class for a number of years which has advantages and disadvantages (weird idea).

2.4 Pre-school and kindergarten: birth to age 6 or 7: more detail about the early childhood (imitation) stage. Free play, outdoor play, oral language. Waldorf dolls yes, but no media (harmful -- weird idea), natural materials (weird idea because they still allow manufactured items as well). Daily, weekly and annual rhythms, including seasonal festivals drawn from a variety of traditions, especially those of the community.

2.5 Elementary education: age 6/7 to 14: more detail of elementary (imagination and the arts) stage. Concepts through stories and images, integrated with the visual and plastic arts, music and movement. Few standardized textbooks (weird idea), main lesson focus (weird idea), other subjects. Looping again. Individual variations in the pace of learning; cooperation, not competition (weird idea).

2.6 Secondary education: more detail on secondary (intellectual) stage. Specialist teachers, academic subjects plus art, music, etc. Independent and creative thinking processes. Ethical principles, a sense of social responsibility.

The reason the current structure is unencyclopedic is that it does not even address WHAT Waldorf education is until the Structure section. If the objective is to present Waldorf pedagogy, then we need to say what the pedagogy is before getting into enumerating what's weird about it or where the weirdness comes from.

Furthermore, in the current form, this section says "Waldorf education is WEIRD, WEIRD, WEIRD; oh by the way it has a structure and a rationale". This is not a neutral presentation but clearly POV. Furthermore, the emphasis on the weirdness in the first 3 sections is totally WP:UNDUE. --EPadmirateur (talk) 05:49, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Your complaint of a chronological layout being "unencyclopedic" is without basis. The chronological presentation is widely used in encyclopedia articles.

You appear to be looking for a particular conclusion, that WE is not weird. Science looks at the evidence and only then makes a conclusion. I think we should make a scientific presentation to the reader. If the reader concludes that WE is weird, so be it. If you are here to push the conclusion away from the evidence which formed it then you are pushing a point of view. Binksternet (talk) 11:21, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

It is normal to present the content before the critique. I agree with EPadmirateur that the current structure clearly has this backwards. hgilbert (talk) 13:30, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Wording of lede: "harboring unacceptable views"

The BBC broadcast suggested that Steiner had unacceptable views, not (so far as I understand) that the Waldorf movement harbored these views. The Waldorf_education#Racism_controversy section reports this accurately, but the lede gives a false impression. Unless there is something I've missed in the broadcast, the lede should be corrected. hgilbert (talk) 11:21, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

I have made an edit to clarify, and linked to the RS article. Alexbrn (talk) 11:54, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

This reads better. hgilbert (talk) 19:48, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I went back and listened to the broadcast again. There is no mention of a concern that Waldorf is or might be colored by Steiner's views on the subject. The only thing raised are his views themselves. I'm not sure even the new wording, accused of being colored by Steiner's unacceptable views on race, reflects this. I see no evidence of such an accusation. Am I missing something? hgilbert (talk) 00:15, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Well yes, there's the interview with the young teacher who expressed the concern that people/pupils will accept Steiner's views as good as far as they go in teaching, and then take a step and end up importing all of his view, including the nasty ones. Alexbrn (talk) 05:10, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

The young teacher does not speak about race at all. Though the editing of the video cleverly places one clip immediately after the other, to encourage one to draw the connections, since neither the commentator nor any speaker actually suggests that race is one of the things that might be imported, to refer this specifically to race would be a clear case of WP:OR (Take care not to go beyond what is expressed in the sources) or WP:Syn: Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. If one reliable source says A, and another reliable source says B, do not join A and B together to imply a conclusion C that is not mentioned by either of the sources. hgilbert (talk) 08:11, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it clearly a case of OR at all, since as your yourself note, the the report is made in such a way "to encourage one to draw the connections": the intent and context are there: it's equivalent to having (in text) clauses with a colon between them. If you want to be absolutely bare about it once could say (rough) "the BBC reported on how the opening of Frome Steiner academy was causing controversy. They reported RS views of race (Schwartz/Weis quote), interviewed a commentator who said this was 'pretty much what the Nazis were pushing', asked the head teacher whether some of RS's views 'could be interpreted as racist' and interviewed a teacher concerned that student might come to accept all of RS's views". Now of source this needs to be summarized for the lede. Alexbrn (talk) 09:03, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Note the precise terminology: "do not imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources". The word explicitly is, well, quite explicit. hgilbert (talk) 09:15, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but in the summary of the lede one needs to summarize. We could say "questions on Steiner's unacceptable views on race have been raised in a BBC report on a School in Frome ..." but I'm not sure it gains us much other than words! Alexbrn (talk) 09:34, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I've tried for accuracy without making the lede more wordy. Feel free to adjust as necessary. hgilbert (talk) 00:00, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Focus on the content of the article rather than the other editors

Alexbrn, I request that you focus on the article content and not on the other editors, assuming their good faith. Your recent edits on this talk page here, here and here amount to harassment making me (at least) "feel threatened or intimidated, and the outcome may be to make editing Wikipedia unpleasant for the target, to undermine them, to frighten them, or to discourage them from editing entirely." Maybe that's not your intention, but that's the very real effect.

So rather than lashing out at the other editors, I request that you focus on the arguments about the content of the article. Thanks, EPadmirateur (talk) 18:36, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

EPadmirateur — I am not "lashing out" but I (wearily, oh so very wearily) take COI editing very seriously. When a COI is in question it is the editor who is the focus of the problem. If COI-tainted editors follow Wikipedia guidelines, then these problems go away. Are you too saying these guidelines can be safely ignored? That's a genuine question, BTW. Alexbrn (talk) 20:08, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

I disagree that the editor(s) and their supposed motivations should be your focus. We all have a point of view and various motivations. Our job as editors is to focus on the content of the articles. If you are constantly trying to "smoke out" the hidden motivations of other editors (for example, here, here and here) and, having supposedly determined them, using those supposed motivations to judge the validity of their edits, you are making a serious mistake, ignoring the precept to assume good faith. Then if you use your personal judgment -- based on your opinions and surmises -- as the basis to bully other editors, cowing them into submission by using terms like "COI-tainted", you are guilty of harassment.

My main motivation in working on WP articles in areas that interest me is to counteract what I have encountered as bullying by certain POV-pushing editors in articles like Rupert Sheldrake, Mae-Wan Ho and Reincarnation research, as well as earlier in this article. (I don't count you among those editors, BTW, because I have found your edits of this article to be, by and large, fair and balanced.)

I know the WP rules, I try to follow them and I try to bring a neutral point of view to the articles I edit. (Perhaps you missed my earlier suggestion about this article.) I believe Hgilbert knows the rules also and strives to be neutral as well. If you haven't noticed, nearly all of the changes you have made to this article have not been challenged by me (or by Hgilbert for that matter).

So I really think you are mistaken about evaluating edits as "COI editing" and editors as "COI-tainted" rather than objectively evaluating the proposed changes on their own merits. --EPadmirateur (talk) 02:05, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

EPadmirateur — you didn't answer my question. Are you saying that WP guidelines on COI can be safely ignored for this article? Because that's what it looks like. Alexbrn (talk) 08:11, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Hm, I thought I did answer it: the answer is yes and no. No, the COI guideline can't be ignored but you are handling the issue in a way that violates the higher-precedent guideline, namely not to harass other editors. From what Hgilbert has said, he has disclosed his COI. I suggest that you stop responding with "COI-tainted" accusations and deal with the proposed edits to the article, with the full knowledge from whom they are coming. If the edit biases the article, then the response ought to be WP:NPOV or WP:UNDUE or whatever, not "COI-tainted editor". The editors of this article know the WP rules and try to abide by them. I suggest again that you assume good faith here. Does that make it clearer? --EPadmirateur (talk) 03:33, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Hgilbert should not be removing text from the article, cited text placed by someone without a conflict of interest. Yet he continues to do so, for instance here where he removes text cited to Jelinek/Sun, saying that the paper is not peer reviewed. Again, he removes Jelinek-cited text with this deletion a few minutes later, leaving an orphaned Jelinek cite in place. A bot fixed the orphaned cite nine minutes later. Finally, Hgilbert removed the third Jelinek cite, saying that the paper was "excluded by arbitration". I typed "Jelinek" and "Waldorf" into the Wikipedia search function and found no such arbitration ruling.

The Jelinek/Sun research paper is cited by four other scholars which establishes its credentials for our purpose. Dr. David Jelinek actually helped a Waldorf school update its science program in response to parent requests—he's not an enemy of Waldorf.

The problem here is that Hgilbert continues to make controversial changes to the article, removing negative findings from Jelinek/Sun, yet he is restricted from doing so by the 2006 ArbCom ruling. We are beyond "good faith" here with Hgilbert, and into damage control—the protection of the encyclopedia's NPOV pillar. Hgilbert must not remove cited text. Binksternet (talk) 11:21, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

EPadmirateur — what you seem to be saying is that AGF "trumps" COI, so in effect the guidelines around COI needn't be followed, and that mentioning them (especially repeatedly, as I do in Hgilbert's case) violates AGF. That's just wrong ... and your fanciful wikilawyering accusation of harassment is unfounded. See WP:HA#NOT, and note "unfounded accusations of harassment may be considered a serious personal attack and dealt with accordingly." I think you are mistaken in thinking COI and AGF are points on the same axis. I happen to think COI editors are not editing in bad faith, since they often truly believe that are making the article "better" and "more neutral"; it's just their COI clouds their judgement. That is why (for the 100th time) they should not be editing pages where that COI compromises them. Alexbrn (talk) 05:31, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Clarification of arbitration guidelines

From Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Waldorf_education/Workshop#Reliable_sources: except with respect to information which is not controversial, material published in Anthroposophy related publications, especially by persons deeply involved in the movement such as teachers or theoreticians, are considered self published and thus not reliable sources. This seems clear. We are dealing here with information that is clearly controversial, and if sourced solely to Anthroposophy related publications clearly contravenes the guidelines. We can still make use of any material from that is reported in other, reliable sources, however, by citing to these sources, rather than the Anth. related pub's. hgilbert (talk) 13:37, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Also: The arbitrator's response to a suggestion that:

In a similar way as for works on controversial issues with regard to Waldorf education, published by anthroposophical or Waldorf publishers, I would also suggest that authors, who have worked actively in a public capacity in organizations, on an ideological basis strongly critical of Waldorf education and anthroposophy, be considered as unreliable sources with regard to controversial issues in relation to Waldorf education and anthroposophy. Thebee 23:26, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

was:

Of course Fred Bauder 18:32, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Further: Clearly there is little third party peer reviewed information available, but that is what you need to work with. Fred Bauder 18:32, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

The format of that arbitration page was the following: Somebody would propose text for a future final decision, then involved parties would endorse it or not, and the arbitrator (Fred Bauder) would endorse it or not. Above, the discussion you present first was endorsed by the arbitrator and two participants. The discussion you present second was challenged, not endorsed by Pete K. The Jelinek/Sun paper was not discussed at all.

The working discussions were subsequently carried to the page Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Waldorf education/Proposed decision and endorsed or not by ArbCom. 100% of arbitrators endorsed the following text based on the discussion you point to:

Information may be included in articles if they can be verified by reference to reliable sources. As applied to this matter, except with respect to information which is not controversial, material published in Anthroposophy related publications, especially by persons deeply involved in the movement such as teachers or theoreticians, are considered self published and thus not reliable sources.

As you see, research papers critical of Waldorf are not disallowed as you wish them to be. Binksternet (talk) 18:04, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Huh? The word especially is not equivalent to exclusively. hgilbert (talk) 03:11, 27 December 2012 (UTC)