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-- Topica Digest --
Anthroposophy_Tomorrow update: critics in service of anti-Christ
By diana.winters verizon.net
RE: Anthroposophy_Tomorrow update: critics in service of anti-Christ
By pkcompany netzero.net
Re: Anthroposophy_Tomorrow update: critics in service of anti-Christ
By Ldenike aol.com
Re: Harmful fairytales?
By nanetteblank hotmail.com
Re: Harmful fairytales?
By nanetteblank hotmail.com
RE: Anthroposophy_Tomorrow update: critics in service of anti-Christ
By powerofjoy2004 yahoo.com
------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2005 09:39:17 -0400
From: "Diana Winters" (diana.winters verizon.net)
Subject: Anthroposophy_Tomorrow update: critics in service of anti-Christ
Here's a little update from the land of Anthroposophy_Tomorrow, which,
unfortunately, tends not to reflect well on anthroposophy today. Pete K. has
been - well - criticizing Steiner. Here is the sort of response criticism of
Steiner evokes from his die-hard fans.
This one's a beaut - it's really worth reading through. Pete and I along
with Dan and Peter Staudenmaier are described as being on an "unholy
crusade" in preparation for the coming of the anti-Christ.
Yes, they are serious.
Diana
Mike T. wrote:
)You Karma is a serious business and hence be warned - each time you )slang
off at the spiritual world - as yea sew, so shall ye reap. )The spiritual
world is not interested in your petty intellect - )what matters more than
anything is truth, absolute truth; not even )what you think is truth - but
truth. So when one has a thought - it )must be scientifically examined and
contemplated until the truth of )that is known. That is why Steiner would
wait 20 years plus before )he spoke of an issue - where this was warranted.
)His "Occult Science and Outline" has a gestatin period of such a )time
span; he had to be sure of every statement before he could )give it to the
world. Such weighty matters as spiritual truth )cannot be light heartedly
entered into.
)Because you are so flippent with the truth, because you besmirch in )a
mocking condecending shallow pitiful manner, the greates initiate )of the
modern era; whilst I was contemplating your hideous remarks, )I had the
image arise which is that which I first wrote of in my )first post to you -
an observation. Because it is the legends of )evangelical so called
Christians (fundamentalists) who will be the )most ardent followers of the
anti christ.
)Dugan PS, Diana and yourself - on this attempted unholy crusade to )destroy
Arch Angel (Archai) MichaELs work here on earth as a )precursor to the
coming of the anti christ (and this is what you )are in fact doing whether
you are conscious of it or not), will )when you cross the threshold have no
more excuse that you did not know what you were doing- as you have been
told.
)See, PK, once you are told, you have no excuse - the spiritual )world will
judge accordingly. You can hide behind your mockery, )your self dillusion,
your emnity and hatred towards the spiritual )world; but you cant hide FROM
the spriritual world. And whether you )deny it or not, seeds of doubt are
already within your soul. Stand )back man, remain silent for a while, listen
to your innermost being )and contemplate; for things are getting worse for
you by the day.
)Mike T
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2005 14:36:25 +0000
From: Pete Karaiskos (pkcompany netzero.net)
Subject: RE: Anthroposophy_Tomorrow update: critics in service of anti-Christ
The worst part is, Mike T is right - things ARE getting worse for me by
the day. Every day as I read crap like this on AT, I realize how sick
and twisted Anthroposophists can become. I think to myself that because
my kids are in a Waldorf school, they could be exposed to people who
think like this every day. This knowledge makes my life worse by the
day - to be sure.
Pete
Diana Winters wrote:
)
)
) Here's a little update from the land of Anthroposophy_Tomorrow, which,
) unfortunately, tends not to reflect well on anthroposophy today. Pete K.
) has
) been - well - criticizing Steiner. Here is the sort of response
) criticism of
) Steiner evokes from his die-hard fans.
)
) This one's a beaut - it's really worth reading through. Pete and I along
) with Dan and Peter Staudenmaier are described as being on an "unholy
) crusade" in preparation for the coming of the anti-Christ.
)
) Yes, they are serious.
)
) Diana
)
)
)
) Mike T. wrote:
)
) )You Karma is a serious business and hence be warned - each time you
) ))slang
) off at the spiritual world - as yea sew, so shall ye reap. )The
) spiritual
) world is not interested in your petty intellect - )what matters more
) than
) anything is truth, absolute truth; not even )what you think is truth -
) but
) truth. So when one has a thought - it )must be scientifically examined
) and
) contemplated until the truth of )that is known. That is why Steiner
) would
) wait 20 years plus before )he spoke of an issue - where this was
) warranted.
)
) )His "Occult Science and Outline" has a gestatin period of such a )time
) span; he had to be sure of every statement before he could )give it to
) the
) world. Such weighty matters as spiritual truth )cannot be light
) heartedly
) entered into.
)
) )Because you are so flippent with the truth, because you besmirch in )a
) mocking condecending shallow pitiful manner, the greates initiate )of
) the
) modern era; whilst I was contemplating your hideous remarks, )I had the
) image arise which is that which I first wrote of in my )first post to
) you -
) an observation. Because it is the legends of )evangelical so called
) Christians (fundamentalists) who will be the )most ardent followers of
) the
) anti christ.
)
)
) )Dugan PS, Diana and yourself - on this attempted unholy crusade to
) ))destroy
) Arch Angel (Archai) MichaELs work here on earth as a )precursor to the
) coming of the anti christ (and this is what you )are in fact doing
) whether
) you are conscious of it or not), will )when you cross the threshold have
) no
) more excuse that you did not know what you were doing- as you have been
) told.
)
) )See, PK, once you are told, you have no excuse - the spiritual )world
) )will
) judge accordingly. You can hide behind your mockery, )your self
) dillusion,
) your emnity and hatred towards the spiritual )world; but you cant hide
) FROM
) the spriritual world. And whether you )deny it or not, seeds of doubt
) are
) already within your soul. Stand )back man, remain silent for a while,
) listen
) to your innermost being )and contemplate; for things are getting worse
) for
) you by the day.
) )Mike T
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
) [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
)
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2005 12:36:22 EDT
From: Ldenike aol.com
Subject: Re: Anthroposophy_Tomorrow update: critics in service of anti-Christ
It must be nice to be so sure you have all the answers, and that you are pure
and holy, and saved. I wish they could spell, though. (g)
The Unholy, Unsaved, and Unspiritual Lisa, handmaiden of the antiChrist.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2005 13:39:36 -0400
From: "nanette blank" (nanetteblank hotmail.com)
Subject: Re: Harmful fairytales?
I must comment that whether Steiner was raciest or not is too me
unimportant, but that a teacher could be so racial insensative is
intolerable. Some of the teachers at the school that my child attended were
at least attentive to their audiences needs, a point that Steiner makes. One
teacher took the intiative to by shades of people crayons, a crayloa product
(gasp).
----- Original Message -----
From: (Ldenike aol.com)
To: (waldorf-critics topica.com)
Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2005 7:50 PM
Subject: Re: Harmful fairytales?
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The other thing many Waldorf parents report is that the princesses or
heroines in most of the fairy tales told at Waldorf have blonde hair and are
very
Nordic in appearance (as described by the story or as drawn by the teacher),
whereas the evil girls or those who are not in favor are dark haired. I know
at
least one Waldorf child who was forced to redraw and repaint her vision of
Eve
from the Garden of Eden story. The child chose to make her Eve have dark
hair
and, I believe, skin. The teacher said that was unacceptable and made the
child
redo it with Eve as a blonde.
My own younger daughter is Asian (adopted from China) and could never draw
herself or anyone who looked like her, because the children in her
Children's
Garden at our Waldorf school were not permitted to use black crayons. When I
found this out (I finally inquired as to why all the girls my daughter drew
at
school had yellow hair), I was very upset. I asked the teacher what children
such as my daughter should do if they wanted to draw people who looked like
them. She suggested she could show the kids how to "rub" various colors
together
to make brown or black. I countered, asking why, if she could do that, she
had
not already done so. Silence. I asked why there were no black or brown
crayons, and was told that those colors are not suitable for children. I
pressed
further, and was told they are not OK spiritually for the children of that
age. I
am sure I stared at the teacher as if she came from the planet Mars, because
I
recall saying "But how can that be true when my daughter's skin is brown and
her hair is black? That's how she was born. Are you saying her skin and hair
color are spiritually not OK? I sure hope not." I proceeded to say that
there
had better be black crayons on the table the next day, or I would make a
loud
fuss in front of other parents.
Lisa
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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==^================================================================
You can ask any question about Waldorf you like here, no matter how basic.
New threads are always welcome.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2005 14:00:38 -0400
From: "nanette blank" (nanetteblank hotmail.com)
Subject: Re: Harmful fairytales?
We had two different Waldorf teachers.One had to be educated that the Grimms
stories were actually not definative versions and that the parents in the
class found the violent stories unaccepted. She had told the story where the
girl cuts off her finger and uses it as a key and several parents took issue
with causing so much distress on our delicate children. It was a strong
group of parents and she got the point. The other teacher was extremely
judicious in selecting stories and presented an impressive variety of
characters and situations. I love stories and she was one of the few
teachers that would engage in discussing stories, meanings, allusions, etc.
Stories are an avenue of acculturation. So I like to pick and choose, sort
of like with TV.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2005 13:49:43 -0700 (PDT)
From: Margaret Sachs (powerofjoy2004 yahoo.com)
Subject: RE: Anthroposophy_Tomorrow update: critics in service of anti-Christ
It's classic cult behavior to label as evil anyone who
questions or criticizes the cult's guru or his
teaching.
Margaret
--- Pete Karaiskos (pkcompany netzero.net) wrote:
) The worst part is, Mike T is right - things ARE
) getting worse for me by
) the day. Every day as I read crap like this on AT,
) I realize how sick
) and twisted Anthroposophists can become. I think to
) myself that because
) my kids are in a Waldorf school, they could be
) exposed to people who
) think like this every day. This knowledge makes my
) life worse by the
) day - to be sure.
)
) Pete
)
) Diana Winters wrote:
) )
) ) Here's a little update from the land of
) Anthroposophy_Tomorrow, which,
) ) unfortunately, tends not to reflect well on
) anthroposophy today. Pete K.
) ) has
) ) been - well - criticizing Steiner. Here is the
) sort of response
) ) criticism of
) ) Steiner evokes from his die-hard fans.
) )
) ) This one's a beaut - it's really worth reading
) through. Pete and I along
) ) with Dan and Peter Staudenmaier are described as
) being on an "unholy
) ) crusade" in preparation for the coming of the
) anti-Christ.
) )
) ) Yes, they are serious.
) )
) ) Diana
) )
) ) Mike T. wrote:
) )
) ) )You Karma is a serious business and hence be
) warned - each time you
) ) ))slang
) ) off at the spiritual world - as yea sew, so shall
) ye reap. )The
) ) spiritual
) ) world is not interested in your petty intellect -
) )what matters more
) ) than
) ) anything is truth, absolute truth; not even )what
) you think is truth -
) ) but
) ) truth. So when one has a thought - it )must be
) scientifically examined
) ) and
) ) contemplated until the truth of )that is known.
) That is why Steiner
) ) would
) ) wait 20 years plus before )he spoke of an issue -
) where this was
) ) warranted.
) )
) ) )His "Occult Science and Outline" has a gestatin
) period of such a )time
) ) span; he had to be sure of every statement before
) he could )give it to
) ) the
) ) world. Such weighty matters as spiritual truth
) )cannot be light
) ) heartedly
) ) entered into.
) )
) ) )Because you are so flippent with the truth,
) because you besmirch in )a
) ) mocking condecending shallow pitiful manner, the
) greates initiate )of
) ) the
) ) modern era; whilst I was contemplating your
) hideous remarks, )I had the
) ) image arise which is that which I first wrote of
) in my )first post to
) ) you -
) ) an observation. Because it is the legends of
) )evangelical so called
) ) Christians (fundamentalists) who will be the )most
) ardent followers of
) ) the
) ) anti christ.
) )
) ) )Dugan PS, Diana and yourself - on this attempted
) unholy crusade to
) ) ))destroy
) ) Arch Angel (Archai) MichaELs work here on earth as
) a )precursor to the
) ) coming of the anti christ (and this is what you
) )are in fact doing
) ) whether
) ) you are conscious of it or not), will )when you
) cross the threshold have
) ) no
) ) more excuse that you did not know what you were
) doing- as you have been
) ) told.
) )
) ) )See, PK, once you are told, you have no excuse -
) the spiritual )world
) ) )will
) ) judge accordingly. You can hide behind your
) mockery, )your self
) ) dillusion,
) ) your emnity and hatred towards the spiritual
) )world; but you cant hide
) ) FROM
) ) the spriritual world. And whether you )deny it or
) not, seeds of doubt
) ) are
) ) already within your soul. Stand )back man, remain
) silent for a while,
) ) listen
) ) to your innermost being )and contemplate; for
) things are getting worse
) ) for
) ) you by the day.
) ) )Mike T
__________________________________________________
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------------------------------
==^================================================================
You can ask any question about Waldorf you like here, no matter how basic. New threads are always welcome.
End of waldorf-critics topica.com digest, issue 1743
-- Topica Digest --
Is Waldorf Science Curriculum creating Anthroposophists?
By pkcompany netzero.net
Anthroposophy in the USA
By paul paulgeorghiades.wanadoo.co.uk
Re: Is Waldorf Science Curriculum creating Anthroposophists?
By powerofjoy2004 yahoo.com
RE: Anthroposophy in the USA
By jaquesdm msn.com
RE: Is Waldorf Science Curriculum creating Anthroposophists?
By pkcompany netzero.net
RE: Anthroposophy in the USA
By pkcompany netzero.net
"their creative and artistic skills, personal maturity"
By SerenaBlaue aol.com
------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 1 May 2005 15:06:16 +0000
From: Pete Karaiskos (pkcompany netzero.net)
Subject: Is Waldorf Science Curriculum creating Anthroposophists?
"Science... or the capacity to see the physical world from the 'inside
out' begins with nature stories in Grades 1 and 2 and moves closer to
the earth in Grade 3 with studies of farming and the caring,
responsible, grateful farmer. The sequence continues with animals
(4th), plants (5th), minerals (6th) and acoustics, optics and astronomy
(7th), and the Human kingdom (8th)."
Waldorf Education - A Family Guide - Michaelmas Press 1989-1992 - p54.
Interesting how the sequence seems interrupted - animals, plants,
minerals, [i]accoustics, optics and astronomy[/i], the Human kingdom.
It doesn't seem to be a very natural order. Why do we put acoustics and
optics in there before we study man - excuse me, the "Human kingdom"?
Let's have a look at what happens in the high school:
Re: 12th grade Science
"In the twelfth grade, the students study visual phenomena. This
includes the phenomena associated with coler, reflection and refraction,
as well as some of the physiological and psychological relationships
that are important in constructing a "picture" of the world. Now the
students have to deal with basic philosophical questions such as: How do
we know what we know? What is the foundation for knowing?"
Renewal, Fall/Winter 2004 - Volume 13, Number 2. Phenomenology and the
Waldorf Science Curriculum by Michael J. D'Aleo - p33.
When Waldorf science classes lead up to the questions in the 12th grade
of "How do we know what we know?" and "What is thefoundation for
knowing?" - this, of course, plays completely into the hands of
Anthroposophists. When students come out of Waldorf high school, in
which they are supposedly learning science by observation, the intention
of Waldorf education seems to be that one cannot observe science - one
has to "know" what is real and not trust reality itself. Why do Waldorf
schools introduce philosophy into science? The question should be - How
can people justify Steiner's "Spiritual Science" without introducing
philosophy into science. If one cannot trust reality, if one cannot
rely on one's senses of observation, one must instead fall back on
philosophy - guess who's philosophy? Since belief in Steiner requires
disbelief in science, Waldorf science at the 12th grade level culminates
with optics (visual distortions) to show how distorted things can
appeared when viewed through one lens or another. This is not
accidental - it is intended to show students not to trust what they see
and ultimately not to trust what they believe. When one loses faith in
reality, something must fill that void and that, of course, is
Anthroposophy. When science loses its legitimacy and is replaced with
faith-based ideas of "knowing" without evidence, then one must question
if legitimate science is really being taught in Waldorf schools - or if
the intention is to prove to students that there is no such thing as
legitimate science and that the lines between proof-based ideas and
faith-based ideas can be blurred.
Pete
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 1 May 2005 22:30:19 +0100
From: "Paul Georghiades" (paul paulgeorghiades.wanadoo.co.uk)
Subject: Anthroposophy in the USA
Dear Everybody,
Is there a fairytale where the hero, naturally on a mission to save the (blonde, passive) princess suddenly stops whirling his weapon around & says the Germanic, archetypal equivalent of "I don't think we're in Kansas any more"?
So I thought I'd come in from England (your closest ally, friends) and argue for Anthroposophy and Waldorf schools in an entertaining and open-minded way, throw a few hostages to fortune if need be, and learn a bit on the way.
But the 40-odd drops I've had in my letterbox already have me reeling! Is there anyone out there who has experienced Waldorf schools and Anthroposophy in England as well as in the United States? Are these utterly different universes? You won't like this one bit, but then there's a lot you seem not to like one bit: do you people shoot to kill before you ask the driver for her ID? On the other hand, is it possible that your Waldorf schools are so different from ours that I'm not getting why you're so very angry?
Please, take me on, shoot me down, get me up to speed. I'd like to play in your park, but it doesn't quite feel like cricket, what?
Dan has I think posted a thing I sent him in favour of Waldorf Science, so you could try slugging that one over the bleachers for a start...(See - no one despises America really: it's just we don't want to admit we're members of the world's biggest cult, all of us in our jeans & t-shirts & trainers with Flatt & Scruggs, Delta Blues, Coltrane, Ramones, Whitney, P Diddy & all on our soundtracks...)
Happy Scrapping to all..
Paul Georghiades
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 1 May 2005 15:36:08 -0700 (PDT)
From: Margaret Sachs (powerofjoy2004 yahoo.com)
Subject: Re: Is Waldorf Science Curriculum creating Anthroposophists?
--- Pete Karaiskos (pkcompany netzero.net) wrote:
) "Science... or the capacity to see the physical
) world from the 'inside
) out' begins with nature stories in Grades 1 and 2
) and moves closer to
) the earth in Grade 3 with studies of farming and the
) caring,
) responsible, grateful farmer. The sequence
) continues with animals
) (4th), plants (5th), minerals (6th) and acoustics,
) optics and astronomy
) (7th), and the Human kingdom (8th)."
) Waldorf Education - A Family Guide - Michaelmas
) Press 1989-1992 - p54.
)
) Interesting how the sequence seems interrupted -
) animals, plants,
) minerals, [i]accoustics, optics and astronomy[/i],
) the Human kingdom.
) It doesn't seem to be a very natural order. Why do
) we put acoustics and
) optics in there before we study man - excuse me, the
) "Human kingdom"?
)
) Let's have a look at what happens in the high
) school:
)
) Re: 12th grade Science
)
) "In the twelfth grade, the students study visual
) phenomena. This
) includes the phenomena associated with coler,
) reflection and refraction,
) as well as some of the physiological and
) psychological relationships
) that are important in constructing a "picture" of
) the world. Now the
) students have to deal with basic philosophical
) questions such as: How do
) we know what we know? What is the foundation for
) knowing?"
) Renewal, Fall/Winter 2004 - Volume 13, Number 2.
) Phenomenology and the
) Waldorf Science Curriculum by Michael J. D'Aleo -
) p33.
)
) When Waldorf science classes lead up to the
) questions in the 12th grade
) of "How do we know what we know?" and "What is
) thefoundation for
) knowing?" - this, of course, plays completely into
) the hands of
) Anthroposophists. When students come out of Waldorf
) high school, in
) which they are supposedly learning science by
) observation, the intention
) of Waldorf education seems to be that one cannot
) observe science - one
) has to "know" what is real and not trust reality
) itself. Why do Waldorf
) schools introduce philosophy into science? The
) question should be - How
) can people justify Steiner's "Spiritual Science"
) without introducing
) philosophy into science. If one cannot trust
) reality, if one cannot
) rely on one's senses of observation, one must
) instead fall back on
) philosophy - guess who's philosophy? Since belief
) in Steiner requires
) disbelief in science, Waldorf science at the 12th
) grade level culminates
) with optics (visual distortions) to show how
) distorted things can
) appeared when viewed through one lens or another.
) This is not
) accidental - it is intended to show students not to
) trust what they see
) and ultimately not to trust what they believe. When
) one loses faith in
) reality, something must fill that void and that, of
) course, is
) Anthroposophy. When science loses its legitimacy
) and is replaced with
) faith-based ideas of "knowing" without evidence,
) then one must question
) if legitimate science is really being taught in
) Waldorf schools - or if
) the intention is to prove to students that there is
) no such thing as
) legitimate science and that the lines between
) proof-based ideas and
) faith-based ideas can be blurred.
)
) Pete
Pete, thanks for this insightful analysis of the
Waldorf science curriculum. It helps me clarify my
own thinking about Waldorf science teaching. One of
the things that has been bothering me for a long time
is the idea that Waldorf teachers include Darwin's
theory of evolution in their teaching but, as
Anthroposophists, reject it. I keep thinking that, if
they believe Steiner's version of creationism, they
are not going to present evolution with any enthusiasm
or much of the rapidly growing supply of fascinating
discoveries and information that support it.
This could be another reason why Waldorf schools
encourage zero TV watching in children. Some parents
who limited TV watching by their children prior to
encountering Waldorf, let their children watch a few
shows they thought appropriate, such as nature
documentaries. These documentaries show us images
that most of us are never going to have the
opportunity to see in real life. They are loaded with
unfolding knowledge about the fascinating evolutionary
adaptations different animals have made to improve
their chances of survival. My opinion is that most
Waldorf teachers probably don't even accumulate this
knowledge in the first place, let alone bring
discussion of it into the classroom.
It's my opinion that students whose science teachers
are stuck in a rigid set of cultic beliefs about
science are being horribly cheated of the wonders of
modern knowledge and exploration of how the universe
and all that is in it works.
What I hadn't recognized before reading your post was
the seemingly deliberate undermining of students'
critical thinking skills when it comes to determining
what is science and what is not science.
Margaret
__________________________________________________
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------------------------------
Date: Sun, 1 May 2005 23:30:21 +0000
From: David Dodds (jaquesdm msn.com)
Subject: RE: Anthroposophy in the USA
Paul Georghiades wrote:
Hello Paul, welcome to the list.
) So I thought I'd come in from England (your closest ally, friends)
I can't compete with this. I'm only in Scotland: don't know where we
stand on the list of allies.
)and argue for Anthroposophy and Waldorf schools in an entertaining )and
)open-minded way, throw a few hostages to fortune if need be, and )learn
)a bit on the way. Is there a fairytale where the hero, )naturally on a
)mission to save the (blonde, passive) princess )suddenly stops whirling
)his weapon around & says the Germanic, )archetypal equivalent of "I
)don't think we're in Kansas any more"?
How very welcome is your offer to be entertaining and open-minded. My
own experience is that attempts to lighten discussion are met with
accusations of idiocy, lack of respect, and perhaps worst of all, of
"misunderstanding" or "not getting it" when, in fact all that has
happened is that I'm simply not persuaded.
)
) But the 40-odd drops I've had in my letterbox already have me reeling!
) Is there anyone out there who has experienced Waldorf schools and
) Anthroposophy in England as well as in the United States? Are these
) utterly different universes?
Yes, there are. Most contributors to the list are in N. America, but
there are list members from most of the English speaking world- and
beyond.
You might care to visit http://waldorfeducation.me.uk
)You won't like this one bit, but then there's a lot you seem not to
))like one bit: do you people shoot to kill before you ask the driver
))for her ID?
Hardly. Few people would be inclined to join this list without first
being seriously involved. Some find it a wonderful experience, others
are devastated by it.
)On the other hand, is it possible that your Waldorf schools are so
))different from ours that I'm not getting why you're so very angry?
My background is in special needs care, so I'd best refrain from comment
on education: others are far better qualified than I am.
Referring back to the link I provided earlier might help explain not
just anger, but the hurt: deep, profound and lasting hurt people and
often their loved ones endure. This comes from different directions, but
they do tend to find a common point in Anthroposophy's "keep it in the
family" inclination, which can be pretty corrupt, and tends to shy clear
of the responsibilities of accountability to which other institutions in
receipt of public funding are subject.
My seven-year experience left me convinced that the prime purpose of
a number, if not all anthro institutions is to deliver anthroposophy,
with the prime trust (education, care etc) coming second.
) Please, take me on, shoot me down, get me up to speed. I'd like to play
) in your park, but it doesn't quite feel like cricket, what?
Don't really play much cricket in the Northern Kingdom Old Bean,
although I did personally bowl a respectable right arm over (optimistic)
in my day.
)
) Dan has I think posted a thing I sent him in favour of Waldorf Science,
) so you could try slugging that one over the bleachers for a start...(See
) - no one despises America really: it's just we don't want to admit we're
) members of the world's biggest cult, all of us in our jeans & t-shirts &
) trainers with Flatt & Scruggs, Delta Blues, Coltrane, Ramones, Whitney,
) P Diddy & all on our soundtracks...)
Yes, well , nobody does Paul, and those of us formerly involved had some
deal of difficulty in admitting to ourselves that such was precisely
what we had allowed ourselves to get sucked in to.
My take on what makes a cult is pretty much summed up by the Cult
Information Centre in London.
http://www.cultinformation.org.uk/article3.html
)
)
Not really interested in scrapping Paul: I'm rather more given to trying
to publicise the bits of anthroposophy that the promotional stuff
swerves round, quite genuinely in the belief that this would eventually
help anthroposophy.
)
Welcome again to the list. I do hope other UK people will comment
further- I tend not to very much since most of my limited energies are
otherwise directed.
Respects...if reciprocated!
Davy
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 2 May 2005 03:50:22 +0000
From: Pete Karaiskos (pkcompany netzero.net)
Subject: RE: Is Waldorf Science Curriculum creating Anthroposophists?
Margaret Sachs wrote:
) Pete, thanks for this insightful analysis of the
) Waldorf science curriculum. It helps me clarify my
) own thinking about Waldorf science teaching. One of
) the things that has been bothering me for a long time
) is the idea that Waldorf teachers include Darwin's
) theory of evolution in their teaching but, as
) Anthroposophists, reject it. I keep thinking that, if
) they believe Steiner's version of creationism, they
) are not going to present evolution with any enthusiasm
) or much of the rapidly growing supply of fascinating
) discoveries and information that support it.
I think they need something to play Steiner's creation myth against.
After all, creation myths of all types are apparent year after year in
the Waldorf curriculum and in 10th or 11th grade, students are asked to
write their own creation myths (at least in my experience). All the
creation myth stuff is clearly intended to soften the students up for
the wackiest creation myth of them all - Steiner's. Darwin's evolution
may be taught, but compared to years and years of creation myths, I
hardly think, even if taught with enthusiasm, that natural selection
would take firm root in Waldorf student's minds. With regard to recent
scientific support - I'd guess most Waldorf teachers aren't up on new
scientific developments that don't support things they believe in
(non-vaccination and such).
)
) This could be another reason why Waldorf schools
) encourage zero TV watching in children. Some parents
) who limited TV watching by their children prior to
) encountering Waldorf, let their children watch a few
) shows they thought appropriate, such as nature
) documentaries. These documentaries show us images
) that most of us are never going to have the
) opportunity to see in real life. They are loaded with
) unfolding knowledge about the fascinating evolutionary
) adaptations different animals have made to improve
) their chances of survival. My opinion is that most
) Waldorf teachers probably don't even accumulate this
) knowledge in the first place, let alone bring
) discussion of it into the classroom.
I'm quite sure you are right.
)
) It's my opinion that students whose science teachers
) are stuck in a rigid set of cultic beliefs about
) science are being horribly cheated of the wonders of
) modern knowledge and exploration of how the universe
) and all that is in it works.
And even if the science teachers want to teach modern science, in many
schools they are hampered by the more dogmatic representatives of
Steiner's science.
)
) What I hadn't recognized before reading your post was
) the seemingly deliberate undermining of students'
) critical thinking skills when it comes to determining
) what is science and what is not science.
I only realized it recently myself. After spending a little time on the
AT list, I started understanding how Anthroposphists think regarding
...um... thinking. They don't seem to need to distinguish provable
facts from "known" facts - i.e. a fact becomes a fact when you "know"
it. It requires no proof at that point. That's why Steiner got away
with terms like "Mystical fact" and "Spiritual science". And that's why
they object so strongly that Anthroposophy is a "belief" system -
instead claiming that it is "knowledge".
Pete
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 2 May 2005 04:08:45 +0000
From: Pete Karaiskos (pkcompany netzero.net)
Subject: RE: Anthroposophy in the USA
Hi Paul, Welcome.
Paul Georghiades wrote:
)
)
) Dear Everybody,
)
) Is there a fairytale where the hero, naturally on a mission to save the
) (blonde, passive) princess suddenly stops whirling his weapon around &
) says the Germanic, archetypal equivalent of "I don't think we're in
) Kansas any more"?
)
I think the quote for Waldorf schools is more like "ignore the man
behind the curtain".
) So I thought I'd come in from England (your closest ally, friends) and
) argue for Anthroposophy and Waldorf schools in an entertaining and
) open-minded way, throw a few hostages to fortune if need be, and learn a
) bit on the way.
)
Again, welcome.
) But the 40-odd drops I've had in my letterbox already have me reeling!
) Is there anyone out there who has experienced Waldorf schools and
) Anthroposophy in England as well as in the United States? Are these
) utterly different universes? (
We had one poster (was it Madpark) who told me my experience (Highland
Hall - Southern California) was very similar to his (Michael Hall -
somewhere in the UK). So, I would say no, the similarity across
international lines is amazing. And I've heard this from both
supporters and critics.
)You won't like this one bit, but then there's a lot you seem not to like
)one bit: do you people shoot to kill before you ask the driver for her
)ID?
I assume that's a rhetorical question. I've been involved with Waldorf
for close to 14 years. I feel I know Ms. Waldorf well enough to be
familiar with her ID and her IUD.
)On the other hand, is it possible that your Waldorf schools are so
)different from ours that I'm not getting why you're so very angry?
It could depend on your experience and expectations. Some people have
great Waldorf experiences and few expectations. Again, I believe
Waldorf schools to, for the most part, exhibit similar characteristics
around the world. Maybe you could help us set the record straight?
)
) Please, take me on, shoot me down, get me up to speed. I'd like to play
) in your park, but it doesn't quite feel like cricket, what?
)
Funny you should mention that - I have been told I share a name with a
famous cricket player. Anyway, I don't suspect you will be shot down -
we like to play with our victims here.
) Dan has I think posted a thing I sent him in favour of Waldorf Science,
) so you could try slugging that one over the bleachers for a start...(See
) - no one despises America really: it's just we don't want to admit we're
) members of the world's biggest cult, all of us in our jeans & t-shirts &
) trainers with Flatt & Scruggs, Delta Blues, Coltrane, Ramones, Whitney,
) P Diddy & all on our soundtracks...)
)
Um... I think a few people despise America, really - but certainly
nobody in the UK, what?
Looking forward to scrapping...
Pete
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 2 May 2005 00:16:41 EDT
From: SerenaBlaue aol.com
Subject: "their creative and artistic skills, personal maturity"
Streatham Guardian
http://www.streathamguardian.co.uk/news/localnews/display.var.592933.0.school_
gutted_by_arsonists_to_rise_again.php
School gutted by arsonists to rise again
By Saxon East
This was the shocking moment arsonists almost ruined a parents' dream to give
their children a special education.
The Waldorf School of South West London in Streatham was burnt down in June
last year, by suspected arsonists crawling underneath the raised building and
lighting fires in several places.
The school temporarily relocated to Streatham Methodist Church in Riggindale
Road.
But thanks to the fundraising efforts of the community, Waldorf is being
rebuilt on the site of the fire in Abbotswood Road and will open in September.
Parents, pupils, staff, volunteers and ex-pupils have helped raise the
£200,000 needed to construct the building, which will house eight year groups from
kindergarten up to aged 14 consisting of 80 children.
[...............]
A number of the pupils move on to the BRIT School for Performing Arts and
Technology in Croydon.
BRIT headteacher Nick Williams said: "Each year we admit a number of Waldorf
School of South West London students.
"We are always impressed by their creative and artistic skills, personal
maturity and enthusiasm for learning."
[...............]
------------------------------
==^================================================================
You can ask any question about Waldorf you like here, no matter how basic. New threads are always welcome.
End of waldorf-critics topica.com digest, issue 1744
-- Topica Digest --
Re: "their creative and artistic skills, personal maturity"
By ldenike aol.com
RE: Anthroposophy in the USA
By qrejy hotmail.com
RE: Is Waldorf Science Curriculum creating Anthroposophists?
By powerofjoy2004 yahoo.com
------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 02 May 2005 08:23:44 -0400
From: ldenike aol.com
Subject: Re: "their creative and artistic skills, personal maturity"
Arson is a horrible crime and an awful thing to have happen to any school, home or building. I am sorry for what the school experienced.
Were I the reporter who wrote that story, however, I might have chosen words other than "special education." It makes the school sound as if it is for children with special needs.
Lisa
-----Original Message-----
From: SerenaBlaue aol.com
To: waldorf-critics topica.com
Sent: Mon, 2 May 2005 00:16:41 EDT
Subject: "their creative and artistic skills, personal maturity"
Your free subscription is supported by today's sponsor:
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Streatham Guardian
http://www.streathamguardian.co.uk/news/localnews/display.var.592933.0.school_
gutted_by_arsonists_to_rise_again.php
School gutted by arsonists to rise again
By Saxon East
This was the shocking moment arsonists almost ruined a parents' dream to give
their children a special education.
The Waldorf School of South West London in Streatham was burnt down in June
last year, by suspected arsonists crawling underneath the raised building and
lighting fires in several places.
The school temporarily relocated to Streatham Methodist Church in Riggindale
Road.
But thanks to the fundraising efforts of the community, Waldorf is being
rebuilt on the site of the fire in Abbotswood Road and will open in September.
Parents, pupils, staff, volunteers and ex-pupils have helped raise the
£200,000 needed to construct the building, which will house eight year groups
from
kindergarten up to aged 14 consisting of 80 children.
[...............]
A number of the pupils move on to the BRIT School for Performing Arts and
Technology in Croydon.
BRIT headteacher Nick Williams said: "Each year we admit a number of Waldorf
School of South West London students.
"We are always impressed by their creative and artistic skills, personal
maturity and enthusiasm for learning."
[...............]
Your free subscription is supported by today's sponsor:
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==^================================================================
You can ask any question about Waldorf you like here, no matter how basic. New
threads are always welcome.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 2 May 2005 20:40:45 +0000
From: DW's Mom (qrejy hotmail.com)
Subject: RE: Anthroposophy in the USA
Paul Georghiades wrote:
) Dan has I think posted a thing I sent him in favour of Waldorf )
) Science, so you could try slugging that one over the bleachers for ) a
) start...
Yes Paul, Dan posted your letter under the subject "Strange Science" on
April 13th. I replied to said letter, also on April 13th.
I'm still anxiously awaiting your reply and further discussion from
others on this list.
DW's Mom
"Minds are like parachutes; they only work when open."
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 2 May 2005 14:40:47 -0700 (PDT)
From: Margaret Sachs (powerofjoy2004 yahoo.com)
Subject: RE: Is Waldorf Science Curriculum creating Anthroposophists?
) Margaret Sachs wrote previously:
) ) What I hadn't recognized before reading your post
) was
) ) the seemingly deliberate undermining of students'
) ) critical thinking skills when it comes to
) determining
) ) what is science and what is not science.
Pete Karaiskos replied:
) I only realized it recently myself. After spending
) a little time on the
) AT list, I started understanding how Anthroposphists
) think regarding
) ...um... thinking. They don't seem to need to
) distinguish provable
) facts from "known" facts - i.e. a fact becomes a
) fact when you "know"
) it. It requires no proof at that point. That's why
) Steiner got away
) with terms like "Mystical fact" and "Spiritual
) science". And that's why
) they object so strongly that Anthroposophy is a
) "belief" system -
) instead claiming that it is "knowledge".
I see the light now! I think the following from the
"Thought Reform" chapter of Margaret Thaler Singer's
book "Cults in Our Midst" is somewhat relevant to that
observation (parentheses mine):
"Sacred science. The leader's wisdom is given a
patina of science, adding a credible layer to his
philosophical, psychological, or political notion. He
can then profess that the group's philosophy should be
applied to all humankind and that anyone who disagrees
or has alternative ideas is not only immoral and
irreverent but also unscientific. Many leaders, for
example, inflate their curricula vitae to make it look
as though they are connected to higher powers [the
Akashic Records], respected historical leaders
[previous reincarnations such as Plato, etc.], and so
forth. Many a cult leader has said that he follows in
he tradition of the greatest -Sigmund Freud, Karl
Marx, the Buddha, Martin Luther, or Jesus Christ."
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
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http://mail.yahoo.com
------------------------------
==^================================================================
You can ask any question about Waldorf you like here, no matter how basic. New threads are always welcome.
End of waldorf-critics topica.com digest, issue 1745
-- Topica Digest --
Arson is HORRIBLE!
By Yarngal webtv.net
Re: Dan's remarks on "Strange Science": New Kid Nearly Offended
By paul paulgeorghiades.wanadoo.co.uk
Just a Small-Town Boy
By yarngal webtv.net
RE: Dan's remarks on "Strange Science": New Kid Nearly Offended
By diana.winters verizon.net
------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 3 May 2005 17:30:23 -0500
From: Yarngal webtv.net (Yarngal)
Subject: Arson is HORRIBLE!
Arson is HORRIBLE! There is NO excuse for it! I am sorry to hear what
happened.
Take care, Yarngal
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 4 May 2005 00:45:45 +0100
From: "Paul Georghiades" (paul paulgeorghiades.wanadoo.co.uk)
Subject: Re: Dan's remarks on "Strange Science": New Kid Nearly Offended
Folks, I'm busy in the next few weeks: Teaching a physics block, getting ready to put on the Merchant of Venice with my class, taking them to Romania. So I'll deal with the fallout as I can.
But look, here's what will undermine the whole thing: Dan, I wasn't being sarcastic at all when I indicated why I was motivated to write in. Consider that the tape of your talk was lent me by a Waldorf teacher trainer who genuinely was interested, and thought I would be too.
The possibilities are: real, naive human interest and enthusiasm for dialogue.
OR: A cult in action, masked by a show of the above.
OR: A sad demonstration of how the cult has so brainwashed me that my naive interest is being falsely directed even without me knowing it.
The other, perhaps more scary thought is that the conditions in the US are so very different on both sides of the divide that the world I'm speaking from is just not relevant to what is exercising you. Perhaps the schools there would scare me, too, and perhaps the "shoot to kill" tone I'm detecting is built in to everyone's cultural inheritance, again on both sides of the Waldorf divide. That's why I asked if anyone has had some experience in England as well, to help me tune in better.
A bit about our school. We have no state or local funding. We are so cheap you would laugh, and then perhaps be horrified by our lack of resources. We try to turn no one away on financial grounds. (Around 50% of our families have bursaries, discounts or deferred payment arrangements). We are non-selective on academic grounds, and every class has some children who probably couldn't manage elsewhere. Yet we work to the highest standards we can aim for. Parents are closely involved at every level (we include parent listeners on our teacher interviews and collate their feedback), and run many parts of the school. If we don't communicate with our parents, we don't have a school. There are issues about explaining the curriculum, but they tend to be at the "How long have you got to talk about this?" level - and there is a lot of public domain information. We state explicitly that we are a Christian-based school in our prospectus, but we're in a very New Age area and we hope it will stop people enthusiastically pitching in and then discovering that we make much of Easter and being offended. We are full of faults and problems, but perhaps different ones than the difficulties you perceive. High-falutin Anthroposophical talk gets a warm welcome when clearly related to living experience, and pretty short shrift otherwise.
When I get a bit of time for this I'll try to be more specific with inputs.
As for phenomenological science, please take a look at the work of Schumacher College in Dartington, UK. It's not sweeping the globe yet, but it genuinely is a bigger set than Anthroposophy. I suspect its day will come through ecological concerns...
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 3 May 2005 18:53:36 -0500 (CDT)
From: yarngal webtv.net
Subject: Just a Small-Town Boy
You have been sent this message from yarngal webtv.net as a courtesy of Utne (http://www.utne.com).
Interesting article. It mentions a Waldorf School.
What do you think?
Best Wishes,yarngal
The entire article may be viewed at http://www.utne.com/pub/2005_129/promo/11642-1.html
Just a Small-Town Boy
May / June 2005
By Joseph Hart, Utne magazine
A writer gives up the rat race and finds peace in the country
When contributing editor Joseph Hart announced that he was moving to a little town called Viroqua, we were not only sad to see him go but also worried that he would regret the decision. He was leaving behind his home and a blossoming career, after all, and it was easy to believe that his urge to slow down might be replaced by a desperate need for stimulation. Save for a few folks, such as assistant editor Laine Bergeson, most of us find that our uneasiness has been replaced with a touch of envy. As you'll read in the following essays, Joe is thriving, personally and professionally, and is part of a growing movement dubbed the rural rebound. And Laine. . . . well, let's just say she remains a tad skeptical. -- The Editors
As a teenager in the Minnesota backwoods, I couldn't wait to move to the city. A gawky, bookish, sometimes snob, I probably would have had a difficult adolescence wherever I lived. But it didn't help my social standing to be one of the only kids in high school whose dad had a Ph.D. Or that my back-to-the-land family lived in a couple of cabins without toilet, telephone, or television. At school, I ran a gauntlet of hostility every day, and I blamed all my problems on the narrow-mindedness of small-town life.
At 17, I moved to Minneapolis and found the glittering glass and steel of that minor metropolis was everything I had dreamed of. I loved the way the sidewalks soaked up the summer heat; the cacophony of radios, cars, and hissing buses; the whirling, cosmopolitan mix of immigrants from Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Most of all, I liked the anonymous freedom of being alone in a downtown crowd. Urban America is rife with struggle, but it's also egalitarian: At some level, everyone in the mass is an equal.
For the next 15 years, I had one urban adventure after another: I slung hash at a punk-rock cafe, made art on street corners, marched in protests, attended shows, wasted long afternoons in coffee shops, made good friends and girlfriends. I found my career, met my wife, had kids. I became, if there is such a thing, a stereotypical, urban Gen-X knowledge worker.
But through it all, I missed the rural life. I had felt like an outsider in my small-town high school. Living in the city didn't annul the alienation. Among yokels, I had been a prig. Among my urban peers, I was a yokel.
Or if not a yokel exactly, separated by a philosophical gulf that I attribute to my rural upbringing. The city is a contrived environment right down to which trees are allowed to grow where. Some days I would look around at the houses and streets, the people with their haircuts and cars and jobs and worries, and I would think none of this is real. This sense of unreality is a symptom of traumatic shock, and it was that palpable to me. I missed the real: the night sky, winter air, room to roam, a sense of privacy.
City consumerism also bothered me. Urban "alternative culture" seemed defined by it. Want to make the world a better place? Buy fair trade instead of Folgers, hemp instead of Gap. I do. And I believe that doing so makes a difference -- up to a point. After that, the difference between a Volvo-driving co-op Rasta and an Escalade-driving corporate drone boils down to brand affiliation. I wanted a life in which brands were irrelevant.
After my second child was born, I had little time or money to enjoy city life. In fact, I started to hate it. I was sick of looking at the litter. I was sick of traffic, an hour of anxiety just to visit a friend across town. I was sick of feeling like I couldn't confront the cursing teenagers who made the neighborhood playground scary for my kids, sick of the low-level hostility of strangers, sick of dirty snow in the winter and a spring that smelled like dog crap instead of dirt. One afternoon I watched as my daughter, Irene, cowered in the back yard with her hands over her ears while a semitruck rumbled down the street, and I realized that it was time to get out.
--------------------------------page 2-------------------------------------
TWO YEARS AGO we rolled into Viroqua, population 4,335, for the first time on a cold January day. It didn't look like Eden to me. The north end of town is a vanilla Midwestern strip -- Wal-Mart, McDonald's, Subway, car dealerships. I couldn't imagine that the place could offer respite from urban junk culture. Over the course of a weekend, though, this small Wisconsin town won us over.
The trip was the culmination of three years of planning. We had listed the attributes we wanted in a small town: a bookstore, a thriving food co-op, good schools, an arts community, affordable housing. Also on our list were items like quiet back yards, beautiful scenery, and nearby parks. Viroqua, an hour off the interstate, checked out. Located in the "driftless" region of Wisconsin, missed by the glaciers that scraped the Great Plains, it's full of ancient cliffs, fertile valleys, spring-fed trout streams, and old oak stands.
Most importantly, we wanted a place to raise our children -- Nate, 16; Irene, 6; and Sam, 3 -- where at least some of our neighbors shared our values, while the rest would tolerate them. In Viroqua, two institutions that have shaped the growth and character of the region in recent years gave us hope that we would find these kind, kindred spirits.
Organic Valley, the largest independent organic farmers' co-op in the nation, has lured people interested in alternative agriculture to this place. Some claim that our county has the most organic farmers per capita in the nation, and it's easy to believe. You can find fresh, local organics at the farmers' market and the food co-op (which will open a big new store this summer); we buy milk, eggs, and produce right off the farm.
The Pleasant Ridge Waldorf School, one of the only rural Waldorf schools in the country (and the first Wisconsin school to offer an organic hot lunch), will celebrate its 25th anniversary later this year. I didn't know much about the 85-year-old Waldorf curriculum before I moved here, but I knew the school attracted a lot of people like me who want their lives to harbor more meaning and passion than the American imperative to "work, buy, consume, die." I've grown to value the school's commitment to art and creativity, and to what Waldorf pedagogy calls "the whole child" -- physical, spiritual, and intellectual.
It was when we visited Pleasant Ridge, where the students all seemed so capable and poised, that we met Paul and Paula Grenier, both chiropractors, and the ad hoc ambassadors of Viroqua. Paula struck up a conversation with my wife, Anne, during the school assembly. Then she whisked us off to their house in the country. They fed us, answered our questions about Viroqua, and then kept an eye on our kids while Anne and I hopped into their hot tub under a brilliant January moon. There, beneath the stars, we made up our minds to move to this place.
What we didn't realize then was that in Viroqua, such encounters are typical. Back in Minneapolis, we had terrific friends. But our visits were penciled in. Social life -- the essence of community -- got scheduled around work, soccer practice, and the daily grind. Here, social life simply materializes. Picking up the kids from school turns into an afternoon at the playground, which turns into a shared dinner, which turns into a bonfire.
This palpable sense of community extends to mutual assistance. When we showed up with our moving truck, we were met by a dozen strangers who helped us bring the boxes in. (Last week, I helped move my fifth piano.) One of our neighbors caught pneumonia last winter, and within days a food brigade had been organized to deliver supper -- for several weeks. My wife and some other mothers with preschoolers meet weekly to share housework.
This social life is the essential difference between city and small-town life. In the city, "community" meant neighborhoods, the city council, the news and issues of the day. My friends and neighbors fit in somewhere, but the primary collective structure was the polis. Here in Viroqua, the primary collective structure is, well, us -- my circle of friends and neighbors, held together from year to year by a thousand shared moments.
--------------------------------page 3-------------------------------------
WHEN MY FAMILY MOVED to Viroqua, we joined one of the most significant population shifts in recent history. Demographers call it "the rural rebound." Rural counties like mine have been losing population since the Civil War. In the 1970s, that trend reversed for the first time. Interrupted by the 1980s farm crisis, the rebound resumed during the 1990s and continues today in spite of recession and war.
Demographers like Kenneth Johnson at Loyola University point to a number of reasons for this shift. Manufacturing jobs are returning to small towns. Retiring boomers are flocking to recreational zones. Urban professionals are taking their work anywhere they like, thanks to the Internet, fax machines, FedEx, and higher speed limits. Finally, there are many people who see the promise of life in the country as not only a personal boon, but also a model for a sane future. The Fellowship for Intentional Community, which publishes an annual directory of co-ops, cohousing, communal living arrangements, and so on, now reports the highest number of forming communities since the late 1960s.
Within the larger rebound are several types of growth patterns. Small towns near a city are becoming outer-ring suburbs. They retain some individuality but are slowly being swallowed up by parking lots, big-box retailers, and McMansions. Others, like Viroqua, lie far from the interstate and the city. These places often have natural beauty and seem to be specializing in an interesting way. Ashland, Oregon, with its Shakespeare festival is one example. Fairfield, Iowa, home of the Maharishi University, is another. A third type of small town is not growing at all. According to Johnson, these towns rely on the traditional rural jobs of farming and mining. In fact, while more people are moving to the country, fewer Americans are actually farming than ever before.
Instead, they're taking jobs in manufacturing or, increasingly, bringing traditionally urban professions along for the ride. Our neighbors are a typical sample. Next door are a welder and a truck driver. Across the street a retired tobacco farmer resides (for years, tobacco was our county's cash crop). Down the block live a violin maker, a homeopathic nurse-practitioner, a graphic designer, and the editor of a regional New Age newspaper. Widen the circle a bit, and you will find several software engineers, innumerable carpenters, massage therapists, writers, musicians, artists, psychologists, and doctors. (Most of us would smile at this catalog of careers, though. People here say they're not making a living, they're making a life.)
In Viroqua, the influx of newcomers has had a profound effect on the social and economic life of the town. One woman who grew up here, now in her 40s, told me that when "hippies" first started moving here in the 1970s, they were met with hostility -- and sometimes with baseball bats. Today's migrants, who often bring money and jobs into the community, are welcomed. Twenty years ago, as one local puts it, downtown was an empty canyon. Today, the brick main street operates at full capacity, with a jewelry store, two drugstores, a dance studio, a smoothie shop, a restored 1920s theater, and many offices, including my own. An auto showroom has been converted into an indoor market.
Of course, the rural rebound has its downsides. As agricultural land gives way to suburban tracts (and sumptuous timber-frame retreats) and the highways fill up, some worry that newcomers will destroy what attracted them in the first place: rural charm and a clean environment. And the physical incursions may be matched by a kind of cultural imperialism on the part of some urban refugees who look on their new environs as little more than a pretty painted backdrop to their movielike lives.
I try to remember that I will essentially be a guest in Viroqua for at least the first 10 or 20 years of my residency -- maybe my whole life. As such, I want to honor the specific cultural heritage of the place I've chosen as my home. I want to invest my time making my community a better place for everyone. That means supporting levies for a school my children don't attend, buying from the local hardware store instead of going for cheaper prices at Home Depot, pitching in at community events, and helping my neighbors when they need me.
I even drove a car in the county demolition derby last year. As much as anything, it was an act of ambassadorship -- a hand extended across the internal geography that divides my urban refugee friends from my local friends. It was also a strangely unifying experience for me. For once, my country and city selves felt aligned. Better still, I took second place in my heat and won a hundred dollars.
--------------------------------page 4-------------------------------------
FOR MUCH OF HISTORY, urban life symbolized all that was sinister and immoral in America, while the countryside promised a utopian idyll. Thoreau's description in Walden of his escape to a cabin on the outskirts of Concord is the classic expression of this complex polarity between wilderness and society: "While civilization has been improving our houses," he writes, "it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them." In recent history, however, Americans have taken a dim view of small-town life. From Sinclair Lewis' Gopher Prairie to Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon, small towns occupy a symbolic placeholder for all that is smug, ignorant, and paranoid about our culture.
Not long after moving to Viroqua, I saw a series of events that seemed to confirm this negative view: When word got out that a gay couple would be speaking at the public school's annual Diversity Day, a group circulated a petition opposing the event, and the school board voted to cancel it. It was a low point for the town. A white supremacist group picked up the story and praised the school board on its Web site. Jay Leno mocked the decision on The Tonight Show. The whole episode reminded me of why I had fled small-town America.
What happened next renewed my faith. Within hours of the vote, a new petition that favored the gay speakers gathered twice the number of signatures from residents old and new. Others raised money for a full-page ad supporting diversity. In short order, the school board reversed itself, and the gay couple was allowed to speak.
But a more important outcome illustrates the unique nature of small-town life: The controversy divided not strangers, but neighbors. And so a band of residents (including my wife) came together to keep the conversation alive. The group, which still meets today, includes both a lesbian and a local evangelical minister who believes homosexuality is a sin.
The fact of the matter is that neither Thoreau nor Keillor get it quite right. Both reduce the country to a kind of parody opposition to the city. It's my firm conviction, though, that if you spend five minutes talking to a rube, you'll discover a sophisticated intelligence and rich emotional life. Spend five minutes talking to a member of the urban intelligentsia, and you'll find a rube.
In other words, each of us has the same capacity for openness and intolerance. The controversy over the gay speaker could happen anywhere -- city folk wear blinders, too. In fact, for all its diversity, the city's segmented society makes it easy to stay in your own circle and to dismiss those with whom you disagree. Our lives here are so intertwined that we're forced into deeper relationships. Here, someone you disagree with is liable to bring you a meal when you're sick.
--------------------------------page 5-------------------------------------
LAST FALL I WENT with my family and two others to gather apples at a nearby orchard. The trees were heavy with fruit, row upon row. The sun turned the orchard into an ocean of light. A pileated woodpecker patrolled our progress. One had only to reach out a hand to find it filled with warm, sweet fruit. Our children played together under the trees, eating apples. Later I made quart after quart of applesauce.
This day has become emblematic of my reasons for living here: all the gifts the planet has to offer, all the warm time spent preparing food and eating it with good friends and their children -- friends who will be here next year, children who will grow up together and learn country ways.
Above all, moving here has allowed me to make room for these experiences. And I'm more convinced than ever that this is life as I ought to be living it. What don't I do in order to have time to gather apples in the fall? I don't read the daily newspaper -- an omission that would have scandalized my urban news-junky self. (But I stay informed and send letters to politicians and editors.) I don't worry about my career. (But I write every day and am more intensely engaged in my work.) Ultimately, I try not to worry about much of anything. That leaves me plenty of time.
Sure, there are moments when I miss my old friends, my old life. I miss the neighborhood bar where I used to take my work to drink and think, where I was a familiar face, nothing more. Sometimes I even miss the smell of heat coming up from the sidewalk.
But I'll trade all that for life with this circle of near and dear -- for a bottle of country wine, a slice of Allison's cheesecake, a soak in Paul and Paula's hot tub, a sip of Bjorn's goat milk, and for all of us together, around my kitchen table, while our children play in the back yard.
--------------------------------page 6-------------------------------------
TELL ME MORE
If you're thinking about a move to small-town America, the following resources are a good place to start:
Books
Moving to a Small Town: A Guidebook to Moving From Urban To Rural America (Simon & Schuster) by Wanda Urbanska and Frank Levering
Finding & Buying Your Place in the Country (Dearborn Trade) by Les Scher and Carol Scher
The 100 Best Small Art Towns in America (Avalon Travel) by John Villani
Almanac of the 50 States (Information Publications) edited by Edith R. Hornor
The Encyclopedia of Country Living (Sasquatch) by Carla Emery
Web Sites
Renewing the Countryside: Resources and links for making the leap to the country. www.renewingthecountryside.org
American FactFinder: Fast access to census data about small towns. www.factfinder.census.gov
Realtor.com: Online searching of MLS listings for a snapshot of home prices. www.realtor.com
Green People: Listings of food co-ops, community-supported agriculture arrangements, farmers' markets, etc. www.greenpeople.org
Intentional Communities: A list of nearly 1,000 intentional
communities worldwide. www.ic.org
Joseph Hart is a contributing editor of Utne. He can be reached at TheDrift frontiernet.net
--------------------------------page 7-------------------------------------
Viroqua, Wisconsin Photo Essay
All images by
Jonathan Chapman Photography.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 03 May 2005 23:40:35 -0400
From: "Diana Winters" (diana.winters verizon.net)
Subject: RE: Dan's remarks on "Strange Science": New Kid Nearly Offended
Hi Paul, you wrote:
)The possibilities are: real, naive human interest and enthusiasm for
)dialogue.
)OR: A cult in action, masked by a show of the above.
)OR: A sad demonstration of how the cult has so brainwashed me that my naive
)interest is being falsely directed even without me knowing it.
I think it's more complicated than that. I would guess a mix of real, naïve
or not naïve human interest and enthusiasm for dialogue AND a cult in
action! Cults have ordinary people in them, like Waldorf teachers, with
human interest and enthusiasm for dialogue etc. Welcome to the list.
Diana
------------------------------
==^================================================================
You can ask any question about Waldorf you like here, no matter how basic. New threads are always welcome.
End of waldorf-critics topica.com digest, issue 1746
-- Topica Digest --
cranial sacral quackery
By pathman00 hotmail.com
------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 5 May 2005 00:53:14 +0000
From: Curtis McGuyer (pathman00 hotmail.com)
Subject: cranial sacral quackery
While picking my youngest son up from the San Diego Waldorf School on
4/28/05, I was told that I could find him in the music room with "Dr.
Ann". I was directed to this room with an unlocked closed door and
opened it to find my son lying supine while a lady, who I did not know,
was doing something to the back of his head. I asked what had happened.
Was my child o.k.? Had there been an accident? "No", she said. She
said that she was moving the bones of my 11 y.o. son's skull to correct
an abnormality of the occipital region. She told me that the occipital
region of his skull was mishapen, abnormal or otherwise malformed such
that it had caused his "meninges to be pulled too far forward". She
also told me that my son's eyes could not track objects, but that this
therapy had helped and that his meninges had returned to the normal
location. Of course, I went ballistic. This lady did not have my
parental consent to touch or "treat" my son. My son is a perfectly
healthy, well formed child. I believe it is harmful to tell a child that
there is something wrong with him, when in reality he is normal. She
claimed to be a naturopathic doctor. Her name is Ann Szaur, N.D., R.N.
I immediately spoke with the school administrator and informed her that
this lady should never again touch my child without my permission. The
administrator told me that "Dr." Szaur was not on the Waldorf staff and
that she had been provided visitor status and given a room in which she
could see children.
I contacted the Department of Consumer Affairs in California and
registered a complaint against Ann Szaur. I spoke with the head of the
Naturopathic Bureau within the DCA, Kathy McKeever, Who told me that
there were 80 licensed naturopathic doctors in California BUT Ann Szaur
is not one of them. Apparently Ann Szaur is practicing without a
license in this state. I have seen her colorful website which advertises
various holistic modalities. She claims on her website to be an
anthrophosophical doctor and a nationaly recognized Waldorf doctor. I
believe she is a quack and practicing without a license in the state of
California.
Does anyone have any additional information about this individual
and/or her involvement in the waldorf system.
A concerned parent
------------------------------
==^================================================================
You can ask any question about Waldorf you like here, no matter how basic. New threads are always welcome.
End of waldorf-critics topica.com digest, issue 1747
-- Topica Digest --
Re: cranial sacral quackery
By madpark nildram.co.uk
Re: cranial sacral quackery
By powerofjoy2004 yahoo.com
Re: Dan's remarks on "Strange Science": New Kid Nearly Offended
By dan dandugan.com
Re: cranial sacral quackery
By dan dandugan.com
Re: cranial sacral quackery
By powerofjoy2004 yahoo.com
------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 05 May 2005 07:59:09 +0100
From: madpark (madpark nildram.co.uk)
Subject: Re: cranial sacral quackery
Hello curtis
Here in England at the Waldorf school the children were taken to the
Anthroposophical ³Doctor² we didn¹t hear much about it unless they needed
Œmedicine¹, in that instance we would be billed on the school bill, my
daughter was told she had ³arthritis² in her big toe (at age 12) and we were
charged £35 for the tube of cream (approx $70) which arrived by post 3 weeks
later...we threw it away...and complained to the class teacher as there was
no channel to the Doctor, the class teacher explained that Œarth¹ and Œitis¹
means Œinflamation¹ and Œjoint¹ so she must be inflamed in her toe...we gave
up at that point...I wish we had left the school but at that time we were
still convinced it was a good education and turned a blind eye to the wacko
bits
elle
) Curtis wrote:
) While picking my youngest son up from the San Diego Waldorf School on
) 4/28/05, I was told that I could find him in the music room with "Dr.
) Ann". I was directed to this room with an unlocked closed door and
) opened it to find my son lying supine while a lady, who I did not know,
) was doing something to the back of his head. I asked what had happened.
) Was my child o.k.? Had there been an accident? "No", she said. She
) said that she was moving the bones of my 11 y.o. son's skull to correct
) an abnormality of the occipital region. She told me that the occipital
) region of his skull was mishapen, abnormal or otherwise malformed such
) that it had caused his "meninges to be pulled too far forward". She
) also told me that my son's eyes could not track objects, but that this
) therapy had helped and that his meninges had returned to the normal
) location. Of course, I went ballistic. This lady did not have my
) parental consent to touch or "treat" my son. My son is a perfectly
) healthy, well formed child. I believe it is harmful to tell a child that
) there is something wrong with him, when in reality he is normal. She
) claimed to be a naturopathic doctor. Her name is Ann Szaur, N.D., R.N.
) I immediately spoke with the school administrator and informed her that
) this lady should never again touch my child without my permission. The
) administrator told me that "Dr." Szaur was not on the Waldorf staff and
) that she had been provided visitor status and given a room in which she
) could see children.
)
) I contacted the Department of Consumer Affairs in California and
) registered a complaint against Ann Szaur. I spoke with the head of the
) Naturopathic Bureau within the DCA, Kathy McKeever, Who told me that
) there were 80 licensed naturopathic doctors in California BUT Ann Szaur
) is not one of them. Apparently Ann Szaur is practicing without a
) license in this state. I have seen her colorful website which advertises
) various holistic modalities. She claims on her website to be an
) anthrophosophical doctor and a nationaly recognized Waldorf doctor. I
) believe she is a quack and practicing without a license in the state of
) California.
)
) Does anyone have any additional information about this individual
) and/or her involvement in the waldorf system.
)
) A concerned parent
)
) Your free subscription is supported by today's sponsor:
) -------------------------------------------------------------------
) Erase wrinkles without Botox!
) Nexiderm SP is clinically proven to reduce wrinkles by 68%. Click
) here to start looking younger today!
) http://click.topica.com/caadslIb1dkiGb7sxn1f/Nexiderm
) -------------------------------------------------------------------
)
) ==^================================================================
) You can ask any question about Waldorf you like here, no matter how basic. New
) threads are always welcome.
)
)
--
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 5 May 2005 13:16:48 -0700 (PDT)
From: Margaret Sachs (powerofjoy2004 yahoo.com)
Subject: Re: cranial sacral quackery
Hello Curtis:
We initially had some faith in Anthroposophical
doctors because years before we ever heard of Waldorf
my husband went to one near where he grew up. He had
some digestive problem and the Anthro doctor gave him
some white powder (no, not cocaine!) that cured the
problem.
When our kids were in Waldorf, the scool promoted an
Anthro doc newly arrived from Brazil. I went to see
her. I was taking iron tablets for anemia at the
time. She told me to stop taking them and to start on
a whole regimen of products sold by the mail order
Anthro pharmacy here in the US. After a couple of
weeks on the Anthro regimen I was fading fast and
barely had the energy to get up in the mornings. I
threw out the Anthro meds, started taking my iron
pills again, and was back in shape again within a
couple of days. The Brazilian Anthro doc did not stay
in LA very long.
When our Waldorf school suggested families make
appointments with a popular visiting Anthroposophist
doctor from another state, despite my previous
experience and out of curiosity, we made an
appointment for our son. Anthroposophist doctors in
the US supposedly have medical degrees in addition to
being anthroposophically trained. Given the lack of
honesty within the Anthro community, it has never
occurred to me before this moment that this might not
be true. The Anthro doctor did no tests other than
visual observation and then pronounced our son anemic.
I took him to his regular pediatrician, who gave him
a blood test. The blood test showed our son was not
anemic.
At that point I knew for sure that Anthro medicine is
quackery.
What happened to your son is particularly outrageous,
given that there was no parental permission. Of
course, at Waldorf schools the child's teacher is
considered the most significant adult in the child's
life and the parents are looked down upon as
spiritually less evolved beings unless they happen to
be Anthroposophists.
Best wishes,
Margaret in L.A.
Discover Yahoo!
Stay in touch with email, IM, photo sharing and more. Check it out!
http://discover.yahoo.com/stayintouch.html
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 5 May 2005 11:44:13 -0700
From: Dan Dugan (dan dandugan.com)
Subject: Re: Dan's remarks on "Strange Science": New Kid Nearly Offended
Paul Georghiades, you wrote,
)Folks, I'm busy in the next few weeks: Teaching a physics block,
)getting ready to put on the Merchant of Venice with my class, taking
)them to Romania. So I'll deal with the fallout as I can.
I understand. I want to dialogue more with you, but I've been busy
with spring trade shows and a great nature recording trip to Utah.
It's OK to reopen a thread weeks later.
)But look, here's what will undermine the whole thing: Dan, I wasn't
)being sarcastic at all when I indicated why I was motivated to write
)in. Consider that the tape of your talk was lent me by a Waldorf
)teacher trainer who genuinely was interested, and thought I would be
)too.
)
)The possibilities are: real, naive human interest and enthusiasm for dialogue.
Let's go for it.
)OR: A cult in action, masked by a show of the above.
)OR: A sad demonstration of how the cult has so brainwashed me that
)my naive interest is being falsely directed even without me knowing
)it.
I appreciate your considering that these are possibilities. I
cultivate skeptical and scientific attitudes, yet Waldorf's beautiful
romanticism was sufficient to make me put them aside until I ran into
things that I just couldn't tolerate.
)The other, perhaps more scary thought is that the conditions in the
)US are so very different on both sides of the divide that the world
)I'm speaking from is just not relevant to what is exercising you.
I don't think so. There's been a tendency in this controversy for
American Waldorf promoters to say that we're enlightened over here,
we aren't Steiner doctrinaires like the Europeans, and for European
Waldorf promoters to say that the new converts in American are
overzealous, the European Waldorf movement is mature and sensible.
The fact is that the Waldorf movement on both sides of the Atlantic
is very similar, with both reasonable and nutty individuals to be
found, often side by side. They all draw on the same publications.
)...A bit about our school. We have no state or local funding. We are
)so cheap you would laugh, and then perhaps be horrified by our lack
)of resources. We try to turn no one away on financial grounds.
)(Around 50% of our families have bursaries, discounts or deferred
)payment arrangements). We are non-selective on academic grounds, and
)every class has some children who probably couldn't manage
)elsewhere. Yet we work to the highest standards we can aim for.
Sounds good, I'd love to visit.
)Parents are closely involved at every level (we include parent
)listeners on our teacher interviews and collate their feedback), and
)run many parts of the school. If we don't communicate with our
)parents, we don't have a school.
That's admirable, I've never heard of a school doing that.
)There are issues about explaining the curriculum, but they tend to
)be at the "How long have you got to talk about this?" level - and
)there is a lot of public domain information. We state explicitly
)that we are a Christian-based school in our prospectus, but we're in
)a very New Age area and we hope it will stop people enthusiastically
)pitching in and then discovering that we make much of Easter and
)being offended.
I'll take issue with that. It's common for Waldorf schools in Europe
to say that they're Christian, and in America to say that they're
nonsectarian. And in Egypt they say that they're Muslim! This is
deceptive, just playing to the local majority. Waldorf schools are
Anthroposophical. Their Christianity isn't the Christianity that most
people mean when they use the word, and they aren't nonsectarian,
either.
)...As for phenomenological science, please take a look at the work
)of Schumacher College in Dartington, UK. It's not sweeping the globe
)yet, but it genuinely is a bigger set than Anthroposophy. I suspect
)its day will come through ecological concerns...
This I want to discuss with you, when you have time. I'd like you to
present what you think phenomenological science is, and why it's
important. Shumacher College says:
)The twin convictions that underpin Schumacher College are these:
)that the rational and scientific view of the world that has so
)dominated Western civilization is incomplete, and that new vision is
)needed to sustain the Earth. Accordingly, it represents a pioneering
)attempt to establish a center in which the conceptual, social and
)moral dimensions of new world-views can be put to the test.
Sounds good, but as Sir Andrew Aguecheek says in Twelfth Night, "What
is 'pourquoi'? Do or not do?" What does a phenomenological or
holistic scientist -do- that is different from what a high-minded
"reductionist" scientist does? In my experience with
Anthroposophists, the high-sounding principles are used as a cover
for unforgivably undisciplined work that has an audience only within
the cult. Your mileage may vary.
-Dan Dugan
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 5 May 2005 11:05:10 -0700
From: Dan Dugan (dan dandugan.com)
Subject: Re: cranial sacral quackery
Welcome to the list, Curtis. You wrote,
)This lady did not have my
)parental consent to touch or "treat" my son. My son is a perfectly
)healthy, well formed child. I believe it is harmful to tell a child that
)there is something wrong with him, when in reality he is normal.
I had a similar experience with my middle son and a chiropractor who
claimed to be able to cure his overbite by manipulating his skull.
That also happened in an insular religious group. In that case it was
an evangelical Christian congregation where both my son's mom and the
chiropractor were members. I threatened to complain to licensing
authorities and he backed off.
)I have seen her colorful website which advertises
)various holistic modalities.
See http://annszaur.com/. Like so many "alternative" and "holistic"
practitioners, she claims to be able to do almost everything!
)She claims on her website to be an
)anthrophosophical doctor and a nationaly recognized Waldorf doctor. I
)believe she is a quack and practicing without a license in the state of
)California.
I agree wholeheartedly with the opinion that Anthroposophical
medicine is quackery. Promotion of AM was one of the issues I had
with elder son's Waldorf school.
Please be careful about libel. It's defensible to say that in your
opinion someone's practice is quackery; stating it as a fact may
expose both you and us.
-Dan Dugan
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 5 May 2005 18:31:07 -0700 (PDT)
From: Margaret Sachs (powerofjoy2004 yahoo.com)
Subject: Re: cranial sacral quackery
I would like to add that what I wrote below is my
personal opinion.
Margaret
--- Margaret Sachs (powerofjoy2004 yahoo.com) wrote:
)
) Hello Curtis:
)
) We initially had some faith in Anthroposophical
) doctors because years before we ever heard of
) Waldorf
) my husband went to one near where he grew up. He had
) some digestive problem and the Anthro doctor gave
) him
) some white powder (no, not cocaine!) that cured the
) problem.
)
) When our kids were in Waldorf, the scool promoted an
) Anthro doc newly arrived from Brazil. I went to see
) her. I was taking iron tablets for anemia at the
) time. She told me to stop taking them and to start
) on
) a whole regimen of products sold by the mail order
) Anthro pharmacy here in the US. After a couple of
) weeks on the Anthro regimen I was fading fast and
) barely had the energy to get up in the mornings. I
) threw out the Anthro meds, started taking my iron
) pills again, and was back in shape again within a
) couple of days. The Brazilian Anthro doc did not
) stay
) in LA very long.
)
) When our Waldorf school suggested families make
) appointments with a popular visiting Anthroposophist
) doctor from another state, despite my previous
) experience and out of curiosity, we made an
) appointment for our son. Anthroposophist doctors in
) the US supposedly have medical degrees in addition
) to
) being anthroposophically trained. Given the lack of
) honesty within the Anthro community, it has never
) occurred to me before this moment that this might
) not
) be true. The Anthro doctor did no tests other than
) visual observation and then pronounced our son
) anemic.
) I took him to his regular pediatrician, who gave
) him
) a blood test. The blood test showed our son was not
) anemic.
)
) At that point I knew for sure that Anthro medicine
) is
) quackery.
)
) What happened to your son is particularly
) outrageous,
) given that there was no parental permission. Of
) course, at Waldorf schools the child's teacher is
) considered the most significant adult in the child's
) life and the parents are looked down upon as
) spiritually less evolved beings unless they happen
) to
) be Anthroposophists.
)
) Best wishes,
) Margaret in L.A.
__________________________________
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Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site!
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/
------------------------------
==^================================================================
You can ask any question about Waldorf you like here, no matter how basic. New threads are always welcome.
End of waldorf-critics topica.com digest, issue 1748
-- Topica Digest --
Anthroposophy and science
By dan dandugan.com
Re: Anthroposophy and science
By dan dandugan.com
Anthroposophical medicine suffers setbacks in Europe
By dan dandugan.com
------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 5 May 2005 17:17:18 -0700
From: Dan Dugan (dan dandugan.com)
Subject: Anthroposophy and science
From the current "Anthroposophy Worldwide," page 1:
-Dan Dugan
Blind Spots
Anthroposophy and Science
Right from the beginning anthroposophy was inaugurated by Rudolf
Steiner as a science - as spiritual science. For Rudolf Steiner,
research of esoteric, objective truths was in this way connected with
a scientific, i.e. inter-subjective, verifiable method.
In the meantime, the concept of science and its fields of research
have changed. Leading representatives of the academic sciences have
already a while ago laid to rest the concepts of objectivity and
inter-subjective verifiability, and postulate instead a radical
constructivism: Everyone creates his own 'I' and his own complete
world. At the same time, 'I' and world are also constructed by
society. Other branches of science, such as the neurosciences and
molecular genetics, represent a materialism that extends to all life
processes in that they reduce the entire human being to physiological
structures and processes.
Yet such forms of science, on the level of scientific theory and
epistemology, are hardly compatible with anthroposophy. By contrast,
individual research results can indeed be illumined (and, if
applicable, interpreted) by an anthroposophical perspective, and a
fruitful exchange may take place in the meeting of individual
researchers from both realms.
On the whole one must nevertheless ascertain that a science which,
among other things, 'deconstructs' the 'I', which sees the world as a
man-made illusion and construct, which causally derives all human
soul life from purely physiological, neurological or genetic
processes, and which denies spiritual reality cannot be reconciled
with anthroposophy on a deeper and principal level. This is not
because anthroposophy wants to close itself off from being scientific
(to the contrary: anthroposophy remains a science, but not a
materialistic or deconstructive one), but because the postulated,
scientific method as described above does not recognize its blind
spots, one-sidednesses and materialism. I find it important to
perceive the acuteness of this conflict and to hold it in
consciousness. Hildegard Backhaus, Dornach
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 6 May 2005 11:19:45 -0700
From: Dan Dugan (dan dandugan.com)
Subject: Re: Anthroposophy and science
My comments:
)Blind Spots
)Anthroposophy and Science
)
)Right from the beginning anthroposophy was inaugurated by Rudolf
)Steiner as a science - as spiritual science.
"Spiritual science" is as scientific as Christian Science.
)For Rudolf Steiner, research of esoteric, objective truths was in
)this way connected with a scientific, i.e. inter-subjective,
)verifiable method.
Steiner's "observations" of Atlantis, for example, are "verifiable"?
Ridiculous.
)In the meantime, the concept of science and its fields of research
)have changed. Leading representatives of the academic sciences have
)already a while ago laid to rest the concepts of objectivity and
)inter-subjective verifiability, and postulate instead a radical
)constructivism: Everyone creates his own 'I' and his own complete
)world. At the same time, 'I' and world are also constructed by
)society.
Backhaus aligns Anthroposophy with post-modern academic philosophy.
That's appropriate; bullshit goes hand in hand with bullshit. She
pretends that post-modernism represents science today. Not at all.
For a delightful deconstruction of the post-modernists, see Sokal:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/103-0121797-7725416
)Other branches of science, such as the neurosciences and molecular
)genetics, represent a materialism that extends to all life processes
)in that they reduce the entire human being to physiological
)structures and processes.
That's what they study, physiological structures and processes!
)Yet such forms of science, on the level of scientific theory and
)epistemology, are hardly compatible with anthroposophy.
You bet they're not. Scientific epistemolgy is based on critical
tests of ideas, not reverence for revelation.
)By contrast, individual research results can indeed be illumined
)(and, if applicable, interpreted) by an anthroposophical
)perspective, and a fruitful exchange may take place in the meeting
)of individual researchers from both realms.
Can anyone point to any significant knowledge that has been developed
with the help of the Anthroposophical perspective?
)On the whole one must nevertheless ascertain that a science which,
)among other things, 'deconstructs' the 'I', which sees the world as
)a man-made illusion and construct,
Speaking as though modern science and post-modernism were the same thing.
)which causally derives all human soul life from purely
)physiological, neurological or genetic processes, and which denies
)spiritual reality cannot be reconciled with anthroposophy on a
)deeper and principal level. This is not because anthroposophy wants
)to close itself off from being scientific (to the contrary:
)anthroposophy remains a science, but not a materialistic or
)deconstructive one), but because the postulated, scientific method
)as described above does not recognize its blind spots,
)one-sidednesses and materialism.
Science is quite aware that it is materialistic, intentionally so.
)I find it important to perceive the acuteness of this conflict and
)to hold it in consciousness. Hildegard Backhaus, Dornach
The acuteness of this conflict starts to hurt when it hits the
Waldorf classroom, or much worse, the cancer clinic.
-Dan Dugan
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 6 May 2005 21:30:09 -0700
From: Dan Dugan (dan dandugan.com)
Subject: Anthroposophical medicine suffers setbacks in Europe
From the current "Anthroposophy Worldwide," (No. 4, May 2005) page 1:
-Dan Dugan
Medical Section
If Unknown, Then Also Unrecognized
Michaela Glockler on the challenges to 'anthroposophical Medicine' to
do more research and be publicly present
In recent years the work of the anthroposophical medical movement,
and with it also that of the Medical Section, has come into a very
critical phase of its development in that in two countries in which
anthroposophical medicine was widely recognized, existential problems
have arisen for legal reasons. In Germany, where anthroposophical
medicine was entirely reimbursed by the medical insurance companies,
it became excluded from this coverage per European legislation and as
a national economic measure. In Holland the remedies had even been
prohibited. We were told, "Your medicine has not yet been evaluated
and approved in accordance with European standards."
As a result of, this we said to ourselves: "We cannot just go on like
this. Now we have to carefully take stock and ask ourselves: "What
can we do in order that in the future such developments can be seen
ahead of time and met in a preventive way?" There is an answer that
also the authorities have pointed out to us: "You have to present
valid research results and present yourselves more convincingly to
the public. You are not known." This touches a sensitive spot because
this is in fact the case.
(snip)
------------------------------
==^================================================================
You can ask any question about Waldorf you like here, no matter how basic. New threads are always welcome.
End of waldorf-critics topica.com digest, issue 1749
-- Topica Digest --
Goethe ring - Newton wroght?
By paul paulgeorghiades.wanadoo.co.uk
------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 01:15:58 +0100
From: "Paul Georghiades" (paul paulgeorghiades.wanadoo.co.uk)
Subject: Goethe ring - Newton wroght?
Just in from the chalkboard - thanks for various challenging yet friendly and humourous responses!
OK I've had a few days teaching 8th grade Waldorf physics for the first time. We've worked through indices of refraction, light rays & lenses & so on, but of course the contentious part would be prisms & colour.
Using the prisms by looking through them ( and yes there would be another way, as I'll point out in a bit) allowed us to be surprised by radiant colour and then begin to want to order the phenomena into an explanation or theory. In the first session the students suggested that the colours arose on "defined edges" (their formulation).
In the second session I gave them cards with various simple variants on black edge - white edge. I asked them to note all the colour phenomena they observed, generate hypotheses and check them against all the evidence. If one piece of evidence sank their hypothesis, they were to re-think the hypothesis. After some debate they came up with several versions(they were working in groups) of: blue green appears where the shadow lightens; yellow red where the light darkens. Some created other card experiments to clarify their formulation.
Out of this we discussed the scientific method in general, in particular the genius of great scientists in asking original questions and then creating just the right experiments out of which hypotheses can both be tested and rethought. We contrasted statements like "Angels have no weight" with "iron is heavier than polystyrene" in terms of verifiability. I hope you will be pleased to learn that at this point we discarded angels as unscientific without the least nostalgia.
I found the prism work had this general usefulness, that it led them into method quite naturally. Handy in that it was limited enough for them to be able to grasp everything relevant.
But - what about Newton? I thought I was ready for this, because a colleague and I had built a large water prism. We could with this do the other thing: stand away from the prism, darken the room, shine a strong light through it, and observe the deflected beam upon the wall. We did of course see the spectral colours. But we saw blue green at the top edge, red yellow at the bottom edge, and a lot of "white light" in the middle. It does seem as though one would get the whole rainbow and no middle band of white light only in the special case that the beam going into the prism were made sufficiently narrow for top edge and bottom edge of it to be effectively "touching". We were able to create the special case, but it made it harder to present Newton as equally widely applicable in terms of colours arising.
I haven't given up: I've got hold of a wonderful book by Lancelot Hogben (Science for the Citizen), which includes a section on Newton's original prismatic experiment, so I'll work through that & see if I can figure out how to give him his due. Anyone out there done this stuff?
It really did seem to me that the students were deeply satisfied by the logicality of the scientific process because they had the experience of generating the hypotheses and testing them against their evidence. Were the cards stacked by the Anthroposophist teacher? Finally, yes: I chose to go with looking "into" the prism rather than setting it up to look at it. But it was intellectually fruitful, and I did have the water prism to aid what I thought would be balance. I still need to research Newton's original further.
The intellectual downside? I did not teach them that the work of the prism is explained by the differing frequencies of colours being slowed in the denser medium of the prism and refracted at differing angles. But they had noted for themselves the various magnification and deflection effects of the prism other than colour phenomena, and that made the transition to work on lenses a piece of cake, so we have moved on to magnifying, telescopes, prismatic binoculars & traditional drawings of light rays, produced lines of sight and virtual images with the greatest of ease. By the time we finish this block, they should understand as well what many of them use most: Cd players, disk drives, speakers etc, because we'll have the wherewithal to deal with the optical parts, the drive motors, the amplifiers and the magnets and diaphragms.
Oh - and bearing in mind three of these kids have an excellent reggae band, we'll get into electric guitar pickups as well.
On phenomenological science in general: I've found a long, highly philosophical paper by somebody at a Swedish University. I'm checking with him in the hope that he's not a Waldorf warrior, or at least only by coincidence of interest, and will come back with a link for you.
Finally, on my own private cult of America: watch Al Pacino blow away a vast cast of distinguished English character actors in the new film of Merchant of Venice.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------------
==^================================================================
You can ask any question about Waldorf you like here, no matter how basic. New threads are always welcome.
End of waldorf-critics topica.com digest, issue 1750
-- Topica Digest --
Cult of personality
By g.pulgar kommunicera.umea.se
Re: Goethe ring - Newton wroght?
By dan dandugan.com
Re: Goethe ring - Newton wroght?
By aesopo_aeternus yahoo.com
Re: Goethe ring - Newton wroght?
By feetapparel hotmail.com
RE: Goethe ring - Newton wroght?
By feetapparel hotmail.com
------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 17:11:12 +0000
From: Why Not (g.pulgar kommunicera.umea.se)
Subject: Cult of personality
Hi,
By way of introduction I am linking up an insightful and quite accurate
;-) post of mine located on the super site:
http://p087.ezboard.com/fopenwaldorffrm2.showMessage?topicID=63.topic
Hope to hear from you soon.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 11:25:59 -0700
From: Dan Dugan (dan dandugan.com)
Subject: Re: Goethe ring - Newton wroght?
Paul Georghiades, you wrote,
)Using the prisms by looking through them ( and yes there would be
)another way, as I'll point out in a bit) allowed us to be surprised
)by radiant colour and then begin to want to order the phenomena into
)an explanation or theory. In the first session the students
)suggested that the colours arose on "defined edges" (their
)formulation).
)
)In the second session I gave them cards with various simple variants
)on black edge - white edge. I asked them to note all the colour
)phenomena they observed, generate hypotheses and check them against
)all the evidence. If one piece of evidence sank their hypothesis,
)they were to re-think the hypothesis. After some debate they came up
)with several versions(they were working in groups) of: blue green
)appears where the shadow lightens; yellow red where the light
)darkens. Some created other card experiments to clarify their
)formulation.
(sarcasm) Congratulations. (/sarcasm) You taught the by-the-book
Anthroposophical lesson, and it worked. Your students "discovered"
Goethe's "primary phenomenon" of color. You and they are now
thoroughly confused about the physics of light and the perception of
color. There are easily-observable phenomena that falsify that theory.
)Out of this we discussed the scientific method in general, in
)particular the genius of great scientists in asking original
)questions and then creating just the right experiments out of which
)hypotheses can both be tested and rethought. We contrasted
)statements like "Angels have no weight" with "iron is heavier than
)polystyrene" in terms of verifiability. I hope you will be pleased
)to learn that at this point we discarded angels as unscientific
)without the least nostalgia.
"Testing" hypotheses is scientific method; but "verifying" them is
not. Do you understand the difference?
)I found the prism work had this general usefulness, that it led them
)into method quite naturally. Handy in that it was limited enough for
)them to be able to grasp everything relevant.
Hardly, since it appears they ended up believing an incorrect theory.
)But - what about Newton? I thought I was ready for this, because a
)colleague and I had built a large water prism. We could with this do
)the other thing: stand away from the prism, darken the room, shine a
)strong light through it, and observe the deflected beam upon the
)wall. We did of course see the spectral colours. But we saw blue
)green at the top edge, red yellow at the bottom edge, and a lot of
)"white light" in the middle. It does seem as though one would get
)the whole rainbow and no middle band of white light only in the
)special case that the beam going into the prism were made
)sufficiently narrow for top edge and bottom edge of it to be
)effectively "touching". We were able to create the special case, but
)it made it harder to present Newton as equally widely applicable in
)terms of colours arising.
It's that special case that teases out the secret in nature. The edge
colors stuff is pretty but misleading.
)I haven't given up: I've got hold of a wonderful book by Lancelot
)Hogben (Science for the Citizen), which includes a section on
)Newton's original prismatic experiment, so I'll work through that &
)see if I can figure out how to give him his due. Anyone out there
)done this stuff?
)
)It really did seem to me that the students were deeply satisfied by
)the logicality of the scientific process because they had the
)experience of generating the hypotheses and testing them against
)their evidence. Were the cards stacked by the Anthroposophist
)teacher? Finally, yes: I chose to go with looking "into" the prism
)rather than setting it up to look at it. But it was intellectually
)fruitful, and I did have the water prism to aid what I thought would
)be balance.
But since the teacher didn't understand the science before the lesson
started, confusion reigned. I hope you'll do your research before you
teach the next time--or use a standard textbook. That's what they're
for, one can't expect a teacher to know everything.
)I still need to research Newton's original further.
)
)The intellectual downside? I did not teach them that the work of the
)prism is explained by the differing frequencies of colours being
)slowed in the denser medium of the prism and refracted at differing
)angles.
So they learned about trivial phenomena and didn't get a physics lesson.
)But they had noted for themselves the various magnification and
)deflection effects of the prism other than colour phenomena, and
)that made the transition to work on lenses a piece of cake, so we
)have moved on to magnifying, telescopes, prismatic binoculars &
)traditional drawings of light rays, produced lines of sight and
)virtual images with the greatest of ease. By the time we finish this
)block, they should understand as well what many of them use most: Cd
)players, disk drives, speakers etc, because we'll have the
)wherewithal to deal with the optical parts, the drive motors, the
)amplifiers and the magnets and diaphragms.
)
)Oh - and bearing in mind three of these kids have an excellent
)reggae band, we'll get into electric guitar pickups as well.
That's all good, if you teach the physics!
)On phenomenological science in general: I've found a long, highly
)philosophical paper by somebody at a Swedish University. I'm
)checking with him in the hope that he's not a Waldorf warrior, or at
)least only by coincidence of interest, and will come back with a
)link for you.
I expect you to make your arguments here, not tell us to go read a
book or look at a web site. Please use links and references to -back
up- your arguments. I want to hear from -you- what Goethean science
is, and why you think it's better than "materialistic" science.
-Dan
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 17:50:46 -0700 (PDT)
From: Linda Clemens (aesopo_aeternus yahoo.com)
Subject: Re: Goethe ring - Newton wroght?
Dan Dugan (dan dandugan.com) wrote:
[sarcasm] Congratulations. [/sarcasm] You taught the by-the-book
Anthroposophical lesson, and it worked. Your students "discovered"
Goethe's "primary phenomenon" of color. You and they are now
thoroughly confused about the physics of light and the perception of
color. There are easily-observable phenomena that falsify that theory.
..."Testing" hypotheses is scientific method; but "verifying" them is
not. Do you understand the difference?...
Hardly, since it appears they ended up believing an incorrect theory....
It's that special case that teases out the secret in nature. The edge
colors stuff is pretty but misleading....
But since the teacher didn't understand the science before the lesson
started, confusion reigned. I hope you'll do your research before you
teach the next time--or use a standard textbook. That's what they're
for, one can't expect a teacher to know everything...So they learned about trivial phenomena and didn't get a physics lesson....That's all good, if you teach the physics!
)On phenomenological science in general: I've found a long, highly
)philosophical paper by somebody at a Swedish University. I'm
)checking with him in the hope that he's not a Waldorf warrior, or at
)least only by coincidence of interest, and will come back with a
)link for you.
I expect you to make your arguments here, not tell us to go read a
book or look at a web site. Please use links and references to -back
up- your arguments. I want to hear from -you- what Goethean science
is, and why you think it's better than "materialistic" science..
Hello, Dan.
You always were a charmer.
As coincidence would have it, I was just talking about the way science is mistreated these days. And you conveniently provide me with an excellent example. It has been bastardized and transformed into a new religion, and Paul here has apparently committed the ultimate sin against it--performing an experiment that doesn't simply confirm what a *true* scientist is allowed to believe. Science isn't supposed to be dictatorial, dogmatic, its experiments aren't meant to be little more than a series lively puppet shows performed to preserve and protect certain pre-approved precepts which have been predestined by properly ordained scientists' and their pet theories.
And science isn't supposed to be challenged they way you have just done~~which is essentially to denounce by decree any and all observations or theories which deviate from the liturgy.
Science is a method, a language, which we use to distill meaningful and sensible conclusions about the world. While you'd prefer, I suppose, that we dispense with it altogether and teach students dogma instead, for others who *do* appreciate an effort to engage students to science by teaching and treating them as if they were scientists, the experiments just described would suit the bill very well.
"Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Theory of Colors has continued to fascinate physicists for almost two centuries since its publication in 1810...[]...We agree with Feigenbaum that the experiments contained in Theory of Colors are what gives Goethe's work its abiding interest. In this article, we suggest that Goethe was a remarkable representative of a research style that we call exploratory experimentation. Long ignored by historians and philosophers of science, exploratory experimentation has nevertheless played a crucial role in the history of physics. "--Physics Today
http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-55/iss-7/p43.html
Thanks, Dan.
Linda
---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard.
--
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 06:25:01 +0000
From: "Peter Farrell" (feetapparel hotmail.com)
Subject: Re: Goethe ring - Newton wroght?
It's funny how often this Physics Today article
(http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-55/iss-7/p43.html
) is quoted with no reference to the resulting discussion.
Have a look at http://www.aip.org/pt/vol-56/iss-3/p10a.html for some
clarification.
While we are discussing the very nice description of the colour lesson in a
Waldorf physics class, it seems remarkable to me that it was apparently
taught without understanding what it was that Newton did or why.
And while we are on verifying versus falsifying this is worth a look
(http://threadtheneedle.blogspot.com/2005/05/battling-confirmation.html).
See you, Peter
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 06:30:33 +0000
From: "Peter Farrell" (feetapparel hotmail.com)
Subject: RE: Goethe ring - Newton wroght?
I meant to thank Paul Georghiades for taking the time to give us such a
clear description of what he taught and what he thought about it.
I have that Lance Hogben book as well. It's pretty old as I recall. I
haven't looked at it for some years and I'm not certain of being able to put
my hand on it in a hurry, but I will attempt to have a look at it on the
weekend.
See you, peter
------------------------------
==^================================================================
You can ask any question about Waldorf you like here, no matter how basic. New threads are always welcome.
End of waldorf-critics topica.com digest, issue 1751
-- Topica Digest --
Re: Goethe ring - Newton wroght?
By dan dandugan.com
Re: Goethe ring - Newton wroght?
By dan dandugan.com
Re: Goethe ring - Newton wroght?
By paul paulgeorghiades.wanadoo.co.uk
Re: Goethe ring - Newton wroght?
By aesopo_aeternus yahoo.com
Re: Goethe ring - Newton wroght?
By aesopo_aeternus yahoo.com
------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 10:52:01 -0700
From: Dan Dugan (dan dandugan.com)
Subject: Re: Goethe ring - Newton wroght?
Peter, you posted,
)And while we are on verifying versus falsifying this is worth a look
)(http://threadtheneedle.blogspot.com/2005/05/battling-confirmation.html).
That's an excellent article about confirmation bias. Confirmation
bias is the biggest problem that I have in my fraud- and myth-busting
in audio engineering. People who are experts, like high-end audio
equipment reviewers and mastering engineers, have a -very- hard time
believing that they are just as susceptible to confirmation bias as
anyone else.
-Dan Dugan
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 11:31:30 -0700
From: Dan Dugan (dan dandugan.com)
Subject: Re: Goethe ring - Newton wroght?
Linda Clemens, you wrote,
)You always were a charmer.
That's what the ladies tell me!
)As coincidence would have it, I was just talking about the way
)science is mistreated these days. And you conveniently provide me
)with an excellent example. It has been bastardized and transformed
)into a new religion, and Paul here has apparently committed the
)ultimate sin against it--performing an experiment that doesn't
)simply confirm what a *true* scientist is allowed to believe.
)Science isn't supposed to be dictatorial, dogmatic, its experiments
)aren't meant to be little more than a series lively puppet shows
)performed to preserve and protect certain pre-approved precepts
)which have been predestined by properly ordained scientists' and
)their pet theories.
What Paul set up wasn't an experiment, it was an indoctrination that
is repeated in Waldorf schools all over the world. And it worked,
i.e. the students arrived at the "correct" conclusion. A scientific
experiment would test a falsifiable hypothesis.
)And science isn't supposed to be challenged they way you have just
)done~~which is essentially to denounce by decree any and all
)observations or theories which deviate from the liturgy.
I did no such thing. Observations become meaningful only when
associated with a theory. Paul led his students to a theory, as
intended. But then the theory was not tested.
Goethe's "primary phenomenon" theory, that warm colors come from the
darkening of light, and cool colors come from lightening of dark,
fails when critically tested. There are commonly observed phenomena
that contradict it. It is -not- the basic theory behind the
generation of color...it's a special case. It isn't dogmatic to point
out an error.
)Science is a method, a language, which we use to distill meaningful
)and sensible conclusions about the world. While you'd prefer, I
)suppose, that we dispense with it altogether and teach students
)dogma instead, for others who *do* appreciate an effort to engage
)students to science by teaching and treating them as if they were
)scientists, the experiments just described would suit the bill very
)well.
Dogma was just what Paul was teaching, and dogma isn't science. Both
Paul and his students were seduced by a misleading demonstration
that's a traditional part of the Waldorf curriculum. I experienced it
in a lecture-demonstration at the San Francisco Waldorf School, and I
have the prism and card kit that comes with Proskauer's book "The
Rediscovery of Color." I recommend that book if you want background
in depth for the bad physics teaching in Waldorf.
)"Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Theory of Colors has continued to
)fascinate physicists for almost two centuries since its publication
)in 1810...[]...We agree with Feigenbaum that the experiments
)contained in Theory of Colors are what gives Goethe's work its
)abiding interest. In this article, we suggest that Goethe was a
)remarkable representative of a research style that we call
)exploratory experimentation. Long ignored by historians and
)philosophers of science, exploratory experimentation has
)nevertheless played a crucial role in the history of physics.
)"--Physics Today
Exploratory experimentation leads to hypotheses (again, observations
alone are meaningless). Hypotheses that have useful explanatory value
and survive critical testing become theories.
-Dan Dugan
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 21:59:23 +0100
From: "Paul Georghiades" (paul paulgeorghiades.wanadoo.co.uk)
Subject: Re: Goethe ring - Newton wroght?
Hey, Dan, thanks for clearly marking the sarcasm!
Well, that's what I'm here for, to put up what I'm doing & then wait for the
incoming. And I appreciate that you have a vast amount of experience with
colour and light work.
I also accept (in fear & trembling) that you really want me to put up a
straight argument as to what "Goethean science" is and how it is not a
disguised term for "Anthroposophical science". Please give me some time to
get that together.
On Newton, two points. 1) In conversation with others about these phenomena,
I came to the same conclusion, that the special case (if it is that) has
been the fruitful one, certainly in terms of application. Please specify for
me the examples contradictory to Goethe to which you refer. I defer to your
greater knowledge (truthful irony rather than sarcasm). Presumably other
non-specialists following this would like to know about these, too.
2) My next door neighbour, a specialist physics teacher, had this to say
about the middle "white" line band seen through the water prism: "It's
mixing the colours back together again in the middle". Do you agree with
that? Do you see "white light" when you mix the colours back?
On doing it this way in general. A few non-rhetorical questions for you.
Progressing out of optics into fluid mechanics, would you expect a group of
13-14 year olds of widely differing abilities to hypothesise accurately the
gravity-pressure-vacuum tendencies of siphons? Would you want them to be
taught the equation for velocity of fluid in a siphon? Would that constitute
knowing about siphons? Does knowing about light mean students of that age
doing experiments to measure light frequency, or should I just tell them it,
so they know it?
What they gained from ordering the phenomena in simple optics, they used to
figure out other things accurately. I think I'm going to ask you to produce
your model of "knowing" for homework, while I do mine....
As to testing and verifying, please correct me (I know you won't be backward
in coming forward): I understood verifiability to be the basic criterion for
a hypothesis to be scientific. So a hypothesis has to allow for testing
through experiment. If it can't be tested it is unverifiable and therefore
can't be considered a matter for scientific inquiry. Is this a wrong
understanding? My epistemology may be out of date, and my memory fading, but
I believe Karl Popper gets the credit for that one?
Please note this: when you post me your epistemological credo, I would
expect to see a differentiation between "knowing" and "knowing in learning",
OR a clear statement as to why they are the same.
I'm enjoying this the way you do after they strap you into the fairground
ride. I do also get the feeling I've paid my way into the "Can you go 15
rounds with the Blackburn Bruiser" challenge. You're still only sparring
gently and I'm sweating and puffing...
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Dugan" (dan dandugan.com)
To: (waldorf-critics topica.com)
Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2005 7:25 PM
Subject: Re: Goethe ring - Newton wroght?
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Paul Georghiades, you wrote,
)Using the prisms by looking through them ( and yes there would be
)another way, as I'll point out in a bit) allowed us to be surprised
)by radiant colour and then begin to want to order the phenomena into
)an explanation or theory. In the first session the students
)suggested that the colours arose on "defined edges" (their
)formulation).
)
)In the second session I gave them cards with various simple variants
)on black edge - white edge. I asked them to note all the colour
)phenomena they observed, generate hypotheses and check them against
)all the evidence. If one piece of evidence sank their hypothesis,
)they were to re-think the hypothesis. After some debate they came up
)with several versions(they were working in groups) of: blue green
)appears where the shadow lightens; yellow red where the light
)darkens. Some created other card experiments to clarify their
)formulation.
(sarcasm) Congratulations. (/sarcasm) You taught the by-the-book
Anthroposophical lesson, and it worked. Your students "discovered"
Goethe's "primary phenomenon" of color. You and they are now
thoroughly confused about the physics of light and the perception of
color. There are easily-observable phenomena that falsify that theory.
)Out of this we discussed the scientific method in general, in
)particular the genius of great scientists in asking original
)questions and then creating just the right experiments out of which
)hypotheses can both be tested and rethought. We contrasted
)statements like "Angels have no weight" with "iron is heavier than
)polystyrene" in terms of verifiability. I hope you will be pleased
)to learn that at this point we discarded angels as unscientific
)without the least nostalgia.
"Testing" hypotheses is scientific method; but "verifying" them is
not. Do you understand the difference?
)I found the prism work had this general usefulness, that it led them
)into method quite naturally. Handy in that it was limited enough for
)them to be able to grasp everything relevant.
Hardly, since it appears they ended up believing an incorrect theory.
)But - what about Newton? I thought I was ready for this, because a
)colleague and I had built a large water prism. We could with this do
)the other thing: stand away from the prism, darken the room, shine a
)strong light through it, and observe the deflected beam upon the
)wall. We did of course see the spectral colours. But we saw blue
)green at the top edge, red yellow at the bottom edge, and a lot of
)"white light" in the middle. It does seem as though one would get
)the whole rainbow and no middle band of white light only in the
)special case that the beam going into the prism were made
)sufficiently narrow for top edge and bottom edge of it to be
)effectively "touching". We were able to create the special case, but
)it made it harder to present Newton as equally widely applicable in
)terms of colours arising.
It's that special case that teases out the secret in nature. The edge
colors stuff is pretty but misleading.
)I haven't given up: I've got hold of a wonderful book by Lancelot
)Hogben (Science for the Citizen), which includes a section on
)Newton's original prismatic experiment, so I'll work through that &
)see if I can figure out how to give him his due. Anyone out there
)done this stuff?
)
)It really did seem to me that the students were deeply satisfied by
)the logicality of the scientific process because they had the
)experience of generating the hypotheses and testing them against
)their evidence. Were the cards stacked by the Anthroposophist
)teacher? Finally, yes: I chose to go with looking "into" the prism
)rather than setting it up to look at it. But it was intellectually
)fruitful, and I did have the water prism to aid what I thought would
)be balance.
But since the teacher didn't understand the science before the lesson
started, confusion reigned. I hope you'll do your research before you
teach the next time--or use a standard textbook. That's what they're
for, one can't expect a teacher to know everything.
)I still need to research Newton's original further.
)
)The intellectual downside? I did not teach them that the work of the
)prism is explained by the differing frequencies of colours being
)slowed in the denser medium of the prism and refracted at differing
)angles.
So they learned about trivial phenomena and didn't get a physics lesson.
)But they had noted for themselves the various magnification and
)deflection effects of the prism other than colour phenomena, and
)that made the transition to work on lenses a piece of cake, so we
)have moved on to magnifying, telescopes, prismatic binoculars &
)traditional drawings of light rays, produced lines of sight and
)virtual images with the greatest of ease. By the time we finish this
)block, they should understand as well what many of them use most: Cd
)players, disk drives, speakers etc, because we'll have the
)wherewithal to deal with the optical parts, the drive motors, the
)amplifiers and the magnets and diaphragms.
)
)Oh - and bearing in mind three of these kids have an excellent
)reggae band, we'll get into electric guitar