Talk:Waldorf education/Archive 7

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Criticism

There really should be some criticism of the schooling, and one could argue that the article reads as a slick PR job. Minimize the criticism and explain it away.

Here are two articles on it: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22147232-2702,00.html http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22147228-2702,00.html

If Waldorf schooling has no criticisms: Fine; but these two articles show there are real concerns and they should be addressed in this article. It is disappointing that these concerns are paid only lip service in this wiki piece.

Also the fact that it requires a major rewrite, and that it's neutrality is disputed should be put on the main article. While "probation warning" might provide this to wiki users, to the general public there could be some confusion as to what it means. I know that based on the 'warnings' on the talk page it didn't seem that the only one 'warning' (probation) seemed appropriate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.242.112.76 (talk • contribs) 11:22, 28 July 2007

The neutrality tag is already on the article. These two sources you link were published today. The date on the articles is good cue why it could not show up in this article before now.Venado 16:37, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I have now included these in the article. Venado 19:30, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Venado!! A+ to u ;) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.242.112.76 (talk • contribs)

Dept of education report

It turns out that this was not a dept. of education report; see this interview with the department's General Manager for Student Wellbeing and Support where she says, "The reality of it is that there is no formal government or department report...it was not a formal report that the department commissioned." I have removed this section as it is unclear who said the statements attributed to the Dept. Hgilbert 19:43, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

What's at issue is the attribution of these statements, not the statements themselves. The reporter claims the statements were made in a report by two curriculum officers in 2000 for then acting regional director Greg Gibbs of the Victorian Department of Education. John Allman, the Department's current General Manager for Student Wellbeing and Support states "Look I have followed that matter up. The reality of it is that there is no formal government or department report, there may have been a view expressed by some people around the Steiner program in that report, but it was not a formal report that the department commissioned. So one view has been expressed; it had been referred to in The Australian article, and so be it.... they may have been Department employees, I'm not sure, I'm just aware that there hasn't been a report commissioned by the Department with respect to the Steiner program."

The reporter and Allman may both be correct. The statement in the Wikipedia article evidently was incorrect in attributing the statement to a report from the Department of Education, but evidently there was some sort of internal "report" from two curriculum officers that did make these judgments, so removing the judgments from the Wikipedia article is excessive in my opinion. Better just to adjust the attribution of the report. For example:

"...despite concerns raised in 2000 by two curriculum officers from the Victorian Department of Education. These officials judged the Steiner approach to learning to read and write as antithetical to the government program, and said its ban on computers and multimedia in primary schools contradicted government policies. They also described Steiner philosophy as sheltering children from the world, and said it was inconsistent with other curricula developed to introduce students to society and the world environment."

Actually I find it completely credible that two public-school curriculum officers evaluated the school and its Steiner curriculum that way. --EPadmirateur 23:22, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm hesitant to endorse including hearsay comments as are appearantly described in the article. The arbcomm probation seems very clear that everything must be verifiable, and while the source is acceptable, the misattributed quotes don't seem to be. On the a personal note, I don't think the comment is very critical. If the Victoria dept. of ed. has rediculous things like US dept. of ed. and the various state's dept. of ed.'s being antithetical to them is not a negative. --Rocksanddirt 23:36, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

In the interview cited, the head of the Dept. made it impossible to attribute any official status to it, to know from whom it stemmed or what its nature was. She made it very clear that it was not an official report; was it an internal memo? That's a very different kettle of fish. Until further information turns up, this is too unverifiable a source: both the identity of the authors and the nature of the document are in doubt. Hgilbert 01:09, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I guess I still don't understand. The statements of the curriculum officers weren't an official report apparently but they were still their statements, their judgments, in "reporting" to the regional director Greg Gibbs. So in what way is this unverifiable? The identity of the authors (i.e. their position or job) and to whom they were making their comments are pretty well established by the reporter. --EPadmirateur 16:05, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

If we include personal statements, properly sourced, this article will devolve into a mess of quotes from teachers and others that have been published in proper sources that totally gets away from the point of the article. The point of the article is a clear, neutral description of the education system/theory/practice. The contentiousness that has been here in the past has made this article the huge discussion of somewhat unrelated items that it is. Lets get back to a neutral description of the basics of waldorf education, with appropriate third party sourced commentary. I do recognize that one of the enourmous problems will be that waldorf schools are independent and there is no single curriculum that drives the movement. The article already has to much weight on publicly funded waldorf methods schools, because that is where there is third party sources are focused. --Rocksanddirt 16:18, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Can you formulate an example of what could be made of this. For example, "In an informal memo, report, or possibly off the cuff comments, disowned by their department head, two unknown persons, said by one interviewer to be curriculum officers of the Dept. of Education, stated that..."

Even Einstein's off the cuff comments or even unpublished notes about relativity would not be good, reliable sources for an encyclopedia, IMHO. A competent author would certainly want to make use of material of this sort, put it into perspective with other material, and draw conclusions that would then be citable here.

Material must be published by a reliable source with peer review. I don't see this as remotely qualifying. Note: I would apply this to any kind of material like this; I would not advocate adding to the article a comment that the television station received many emails in support of the schools, though the interviewer mentions this, too. Hgilbert 16:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I don't know. I'm not as hard core on peer review...I could see using such things as TV interviews, if the person were speaking for the department/agency/whatever and discussing either a policy or or report of the education department (for example). However, this case is not that. The comments seem to have been characterized as not the departments policy or findings. --Rocksanddirt 16:58, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Comments in TV or radio interview from one person are not as good reference as news in report interviewed from many, including authors of the "report". "The report was completed by two curriculum officers in 2000 for then acting regional director Greg Gibbs after Footscray City Primary School indicated it wanted a Steiner stream. Mr Gibbs told the school he was unable to "support such a proposal". "the report examined Steiner curriculum proposals provided by Footscray City Primary School and information available online about Steiner education. " Authors were Pat Hincks and Janette Cook. Pat Hincks in 2006 was humanities curriculum manager at Victoria Department of Education and Training. Janette Cook also writer about school curriculum in Australia. We do not know more about what kind of report it was. Here we cant assume what kind from these references.Venado 18:38, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely they are not as good a ref. I'm just saying that we shouldn't exclude an interview report simply on the basis of "not peer reviewed." We should evaluate the merits of each one. And in this case, if there is no published gov't report (peer reviewed or not) as indicated in Hg's comments, then I really am against using the comments as I don't want the main article cluttered up with reliably sourced quotes that arn't descriptive of the program. --Rocksanddirt 19:06, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

The peer review requirement was set by the arbitrators for all controversial material. It is not currently subject to negotiation; this would require a review of the arbitration. Hgilbert 19:19, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

That's not quite the case. Government reports are not peer reviewed in the way academic journals are peer reviewed, and media reports are also not peer reviewed, yet both of these types of references are included (because they are "reliable"). --Rocksanddirt 19:47, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, here is an excerpt of the "report" cited and quoted in a less than neutral source but still it identifies the "report" and some of the quoted content:

In 2000 the Department of Education, Employment and Training (DEET) made an assessment of Steiner Education as a result of the planned introduction of a Steiner stream at Footscray City Primary School. [...] The 2000 DEET Report states:

I. “Steiner education would appear to be the antithesis of the philosophy of the Early Years Program”.

II. “The attitude of [Steiner education] to students’ exposure to media and ICT (Information and Communication Technology) appears [to be] in direct contradiction to [DEET’s curriculum requirements].”

III. “Steiner education is based on a philosophy of cocooning children from the world…”. This is in direct contrast to… [ the DEET curriculum requirements].

IV. “We are concerned by the recommendations [of the Steiner movement] about setting up Steiner schools [in government schools]. ‘The main benefits cited are: The cost of the teacher is paid by the state; the facilities are provided by the school; the school will “carry” the reduced numbers in the Steiner stream; free administration.”

The editing of the quotations is suspect in my opinion as is the selectivity of the points reported. Nevertheless, there appears there was a report to an "acting regional director" giving an assessment, much as the reporter stated in the news article. The Victorian Education Department's current General Manager for Student Wellbeing and Support denies that this was a formal government or department report. So be it. Nevertheless, what is at issue is the verifiability that there was an assessment by two known (identified) curriculum officers. This is a second source corroborating that there was an assessment and the gist of that assessment. I think the wording I proposed earlier is a fair summary of the statements of the two curriculum officers. --EPadmirateur 20:11, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Any chance we (anyone) could get a copy of this report? Most of the other academic or agency reports cited here are availible either online, or through large library systems. As the director of the agency has denied the report's existance, I'm really hesitant that we can conclude that the statements attributed to it accurately summarize the report. Did it seem as if the news article quoted only things from this "less than neutral source"? Or did it seem more like the reporter had read the report? --Rocksanddirt 21:33, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I thought about the possibility that the reporter used the "less than neutral" source as her primary source, but her report includes quotations that are omitted from the corroborating citation: Authors Pat Hincks and Janette Cook say Steiner's ban on computers and multimedia in primary school is in "direct contradiction" to department policies. "Steiner education is based on a philosophy of cocooning children from the world to develop their imagination," the report says. "This is in direct contrast to, for example, the studies of society and environment ... where the emphasis is on study of family as a 'starting point to help them understand the world in which they live' ." I think the reporter had the full "report" or a fairly complete subset and also gives a better summary of it. --EPadmirateur 22:09, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

My suggestion: Compare the section in question to other sections of the article, including the space given to published studies (such as the official one done by the Dept. of Education in Great Britain). Consider how the various sections treat balance of POV and whether the extensiveness of coverage is proportionate to the long-term significance of the material. Make a decision as to how to proceed on that basis.

And yes, Rocksanddirt, it is a little uncomfortable that there is no full copy of the report to reference. Hgilbert 01:39, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Here is the full document: [1] 203.214.75.49 23:59, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I've listened to the two radio programs that were aired on the subject on ABC Radio National in Australia. Within the Education Dept., you have the clear views of the Victorian State Education Dept. General Manager for Student Well-Being, John Allman, and the principal of the school at issue, Win Warren, clearly representing the view that the pedagogical practice does not show any influence from any spiritual or religious dimensions (of anthroposophy or otherwise). This official stance contrasts with the document from the curriculum authority/ies mentioned in the newspaper accounts. There are also mixed views represented amongst the parent body. I have tried to indicate that this divergence exists at all levels: parent, administration/dept. of education, (actually, there are no accounts of school administrators having any problems with the program). I hope this represents the current state of the discussion accurately.

By the way, the station's transcripts of the broadcasts are very incomplete. Only the recordings, available on the radio station site, contain the full broadcast. Hgilbert 13:28, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I did not read that the curriculum report wrote about spiritual or religious question. I thought examples list in news said the curriculum report compared Steiner school curriculum practice to curriculum guidelines. There are to parts of controversy. one about education and other about religion. The report question fits the first part about curriculum, Steiner program fitting Victoria education guidelines. The new edit only tells now about dispute about is it a religious school. Venado 15:25, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

EP's version now addresses both topics, the spiritual/religious question focused on by the radio broadcasts and the curriculum issues raised by the earlier internal report. The section is disproportionately large (as topical controversies tend to be in Wikipedia) compared to more thorough assessments by more competent authorities (see the Reception section), but this probably can't be helped; in any case, I hope that it will be seen by all sides as balanced. Hgilbert 20:06, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Wow, thank you everyone for working on this section and wording it in what I feel is neutral language. I only had time to comment on my personal blog about the conflict in Victoria, but you guys did major research!

I think it's interesting to note that saying that the Steiner school method contravenes government standards (such as computer use in early years) isn't truly a criticism, it's just noting that the public system has different priorities than Waldorf. I found the article in The Australian to be lacking in depth and frankly inflammatory, but that's to be expected when the major Waldorf-critical source is a cult expert...how could he really be unbiased?

As for the religious/spiritual issue, I'm wondering what everyone thinks about that. I feel Waldorf is inherently spiritual, because anthroposophy is spiritual (in that all human beings and human activity involves the spirit), but that it certainly is not a religion. Waldorf methods may come into conflict with the inherently materialistic and dualistic foundation of public methods, IMHO there is no problem with church/state separation as defined in the US. Henitsirk 02:38, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I just find it interesting that there has been no sign of Hgilbert since I posted the link to the document he and Rocksanddirt were so interested in: http://peopleforstateeducation.org/website/LettertoLaurieK.pdf —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.37.44.194 (talk)

Yes, thank you for posting the link to the document on 11 August! The original document confirms that the reporter was accurate in her reporting that there was an assessment in 2000 prior to the school opening and her summary of the essential issues that the two curriculum officers raised. It may be good to add the document as an additional reference. --EPadmirateur 01:43, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I have added the reference. --EPadmirateur 01:55, 23 August 2007 (UTC)