alicia h.

aka zooey 

better opportunities to incarnate (via @thetismercurio)

Steiner childcare is "working with the spiritual world", this is from advertisement for a book called Creating a Home for Body, Soul and Spirit -- A New Approach to Childcare:

The concept of a ‘home away from home’ has been penetrated with a deep understanding of what forms this environment and the anthroposophical day nursery is built around the knowledge of an archetypal home, the development of the human being and an awareness of the individuals whose karma and destiny has, at this point in time, led them to be here.

Lastly and most importantly through this dedicated and committed approach, the unfolding of these children’s lives are given the best opportunity to incarnate and develop fully in order to be able to take up their life path as best as they are able and to be able to build a solid foundation towards reaching their full potential.

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Filed under  //   incarnation   karma   kindergarten   Waldorf  
Posted by alicia h. 

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wayne and shane

from the Titirangi Steiner Messenger.

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Filed under  //   film   Waldorf  
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"understanding ourselves as embryo"

anthroposophical society workshop, Portland June 2010.

This workshop will explore human prenatal development and how the shaping of the body (morphogenesis) expresses essential attributes of human spiritual development. The scientific method of phenomenology is used to create a synthesis between modern ‘regular’ embryology and a holistic view on the human being. Approached in this way the human embryo reveals who we are and what we are meant to be.

Among other things, those attending will cover

Dynamics of conception, incarnation, embodiment and individuation

The human body as equilibrium of polarities and as manifestation of threefoldness.

Teacher is Jaap van der Mal:

PhD, MD is associate professor of Anatomy and Embryology at the University of Maastricht, Holland, specialized in functional human anatomy. ... He teaches a.o. at institutes of Anthroposophy, Craniosacral Therapy, Osteopathy and Polarity Therapy around the world for practitioners as well as laymen.

From a pdf-document with details about the workshop:

In this seminar an attempt is made to get to the often denied spiritual core of this phase of human existence.

The embryo helps us to learn the real patterns of (human) development. It reveals our essence as a being, mediating between spirit and matter, soul and body, between heaven (cosmos) and earth.

... the mystery of the incarnation of spirit with (or into) a body will be revealed. It will provide an image of the human being that is based on spirituality and science. ‘Embryosophy' as presented in this course will open new perspectives as to polarity thinking and threefoldness, microcosm and macrocosm, heredity and incarnation and evolution of the earth and mankind.

... we are not simply generated from egg cells or a genome, but that we incarnate during the embryonic phase into the body. We are beings who come to appearance in our biography by means of our body.

Embryosophy is, according to the brochure, what van der Mal teaches to anthroposophist, craniosacral therapists, polarity therapists, among others. He says

The embryo moves, behaves in forms. It is in this area that I encountered anthroposophy.

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Filed under  //   anthroposophic medicine   incarnation  
Posted by alicia h. 

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mr dog, mr dog's bunny and very shoddy weather

     

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Posted by alicia h. 

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gegen schweinegrippe

Blogger in a Camphill village, Northern Ireland:

Unsere community ist anthroposophisch geprägt. ... Ich möchte jedoch erläutern, an was für komische Dinge einige Leute hier glauben. ... Ein ... Beispiel, ist der Vortrag über Meteoritenstaub. Das Tolle an Meteoritenstaub ist nämlich, dass er so eisenhaltig ist, daß er unser inneres Schwert stärkt, das in uns gegen das Böse kämpft. Einige Hardcore-Anthroposophen sind sogar davon überzeugt, dies sei das einzig wahre Mittel gegen Schweinegrippe.

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Filed under  //   illness  
Posted by alicia h. 

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launch event! hooray! (steiner waldorf at plymouth uni)

University of Plymouth announces an upcoming launch event of a project on Steiner education. It's a project report called Meeting the Child.

The Steiner Waldorf School Fellowship apparently approves of this little document, since they're alread advertising it.

Quote from university's press release:

The report, ‘Meeting the Child’, written by Mary Jane Drummond and Sally Jenkinson, draws on classroom observations and interviews with kindergarten teachers in Hereford, Cambridge and Bristol, and focuses on the Steiner approach to observation and assessment.

This report will "be presented to the Department for Children, Schools and Families’ Academies Division."

Professor Michael Totterdell, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Education, and Pro Vice-Chancellor at the University of Plymouth, said: “This is an important piece of research, the result of a joint investigation between Steiner and mainstream educators.

Mr Totterdell seems to be speaking against his better knowledge: neither Drummond nor Jenkinson are mainstream educators -- and after all, they wrote the report, they draw the conclusions. To which extent mainstream educators were involved at all, is unknown to me at this time.

Steiner education is now receiving public funding through the Academies Programme and this research demonstrates that other educators may have valuable lessons to learn from the Steiner kindergarten teachers’ distinctive approach to developing a full and detailed knowledge of each individual child.

Blah blah blah. I said on twitter that this looks to me like a typical propaganda move. Steiner education is recieving public funding, thus it must be a valid educational approach. This research, undertaken by authors already committed to the Steiner movement, show good things about Steiner education, naturally, thus other educators have things to learn from waldorf/Steiner. (This was the same conclusions drawn by anthropsophist Bo Dahlin in his research. Which, by the way, was deeply flawed.) Then the passage continues by boldy asserting that Steiner teachers approach means a full and detailed knowledge of each child. The assumption being that this is in some way unique for waldorf. Yes, it indeed is -- if you mean that Steiner teachers consider astral and etheric bodies and the higher "I" and posits the existance of a reincarnating individual soul. Detailed knowledge is, in fact, the institutionalized dissection of -- and thereupon passing judgment on -- unknowing and non-assenting children's souls and spiritual qualities. Should've written that in the press release, I believe. But I suppose it's easier to boast that others have things to learn from waldorf than it is to speak about anthroposophy's role in "developing a full and detailed knowledge of each individual child." Huh?

When the project was launched initially it was described like this in Steiner/waldorf newsletter:

The project will explore the importance of the ‘narrative form’ – each child’s unique life-journey - in enabling the teacher to reflect on the child's nature and learning. The focus on observing the whole child - physical; emotional; cognitive; social – in preference to emphasising externally-generated check-lists of pre-determined learning outcomes and targets is likely to provide one fertile line of enquiry.

Anyway -- who are Drummond and Jenkinson? They are authors previously published by anthroposophical publishers. They both worked with this brochure The Future of Childhood.

It is published on the initiative of the anthroposophical organisation Alliance for Childhood. Another author of the same brochure appears to be Christopher Clouder -- a representative of the waldorf school movement.

So what about the authors of this new Plymouth report?

Sally Jenkinson is described on Steiner Books' website; she

is a lecturer, mother and kindergarten teacher. She works for the Alliance for Childhood, having advised Waldorf kindergartens for many years. She is a respected contributor to British and European research conferences on early childhood. She is a tireless advocate of children's holistic developmental needs, particularly to the Department for Employment and Education during their consultation on early years education for the national curriculum.

Steiner Books also published her Free to Learn and The Genius of Play.

The latter book is accompanied by a review quote -- well actually it may be a quote from the introduction, written by her -- by Mary Jane Drummonds, by the way. In the above mentioned newsletter, Jenkinson is described as a "Steiner specialist". She should be, having worked for the Steiner School Fellowship, where part of her work was to be "watchful" about government requirements. She seems familiar enough with the literature of waldorf educators and anthroposophists. Besides, she's not just a kindergarten teacher, she's a "Steiner Waldorf Kindergarten teacher".

Mary Jane Drummond has also been involved in Alliance for Childhood, as well as the editor of The Future of Childhood. In the book Early Education Transformed, she wrote a chapter on waldorf education in kindergarten. The involvement in Alliance for Childhood may seem a bit odd, though, because in the chapter of the latter book mentioned, she writes "I am not a Steiner educator, nor will ever be."

[Sorry, a slightly muddled post, but mr Dog is getting annoyed with me. He says he doesn't give a damn about Jenkinson and Drummond and the SWSF. He would support an Alliance for Puppyhood, though.]

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Filed under  //   reports   university of plymouth   Waldorf  
Posted by alicia h. 

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steiner school, new zeeland (ht @thetismercurio)

http://www.titirangisteinermessenger.com/TSM/Welcome.html

This site aims to represent parents who are interested to know that there are unacceptable levels of bullying, harassment and uncontrolled aggression taking place at the Titirangi Steiner School. Those parents may have left, may be at the school or may be thinking of sending their children there.

It also aims to keep children safe, by bringing the safety issues into the public arena so that people will be properly informed.  Some of what we will have to put up here is quite shocking and we wouldn’t have believed it if we had not experienced it ourselves.

...

As parents we were asked to watch our daughter being hit and accept it.  Now the whole school community have all been asked to watch us being hit, and accept it.

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Filed under  //   abuse   Waldorf  
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this is a slightly weird conference

Sexuality and consciousness, hosted by the anthroposophic Christian Community, in N.Y. next year. Lecturer, a homeopathic "health care" provider.

Please know that this is a research based inquiry into sexuality

There is no pre reading but a basic understanding of the four  bodies (physical, etheric, astral and I) is highly recommended. (See Theosophy, chapter 1 or Occult Science, an Outline, chapter 2. Both by Rudolf Steiner)

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the return of manu (via @lovelyhorse_)

Pfeiffer, The Task of the Archangel Michael:

The threefold social order of Rudolf Steiner is particularly a preparatory work to bring about a future incarnation of Manes. I once discussed with Rudolf Steiner the question of when would be the proper time for the application of etheric forces for technical uses. He said that this would be when the threefold order is established. He said that Manes could not find a suitable body yet, that all the forces he would be able to bring to an incarnation would be destroyed by modern education.

Therefore he said that Waldorf education needed first to come into being and that the threefold social order must also come into being. Therefore I would see it as our immediate task to bring about this threefold order first through thought and then through action, so that Manes can incarnate. By karma, Manes' incarnation would be due by the end of the century. Whether this will be possible I do not know, but if the threefold social order and Waldorf education were established he could incarnate. I see it as our task to make the preparations so that he can incarnate again.

Lievegoed, The Battle of the Soul:

Rudolf Steiner once said to Pfeiffer that he had started the Waldorf school and the threefold social order to make the incarnation of Manu and his helpers possible. Let us hope there are enough active anthroposophists to accomplish what Manu needs for his development. And let us hope anthroposophists will recognize him once he is here.

Source.

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Filed under  //   tasks   Waldorf  
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uk minister at camphill (@thetismercurio et alia)

The minister for disabled people will visit an Aberdeen school to learn about its work with special needs children.

Camphill School is an independent voluntary school providing residential and day places for more than 90 pupils, offering education, care and therapy.

Minister Jonathan Shaw said it is a "great time to visit and find out more" as the school is marking its 70th year.

Source.

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Filed under  //   camphill   curative education  
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