Liz Wells( Eurhythmy teacher from Glenaeon): Eurhythmy brings forth into the visible what would otherwise usually be audial and would usually be internalised, so it is a medium by which the viewer is able to perceive and see visually aspects which are otherwise not visible.
Geraldine Doogue: Steiner education progresses according to how a child evolves, physically, spiritually, and intellectually. In the early years, emphasis was placed on actively developing physical and mental skills through making things, and mental arithmetic. We were unable to show children in these kindergarten rooms because younger children aren’t exposed to technology such as computers and TV.
Stephen Crittenden: A grab from the ‘Compass’ program on ABC-TV in 2002.
The Victorian Education Department is in the middle of a growing controversy about the Steiner method. In recent years, Steiner has been adopted as an alternative curriculum strand in a number of the State’s public schools. At first it happened under the radar and against Education Department policy. But last year the Department’s Deputy Director, Daryl Fraser, released new guidelines approving Steiner as an optional stream in some schools.
But some parents say the Steiner method is really concealing a spiritualist philosophy, and that it’s not appropriate for inclusion in a secular public system.
Steiner’s educational ideas are based on the spiritualist philosophy he founded, called Anthroposophy. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church defines Anthroposophy as ‘a system based on the premises that the human soul can, of its own power, contact the spiritual world’, and says the concepts of reincarnation and karma are central to it.
The 20th century Encyclopaedia of Religious Knowledge is less kind. It says Anthroposophy is ‘reminiscent of the decadent intellectualism of the Weimar Republic’.
Some schools, such as Footscray City Primary School in Melbourne are now deeply divided. Jenni Lans is a parent at the school who has kept her children out of the program.
C.S. Lewis knew some things about Anthroposophy because two of his good friends, A.C. Harwood and Owen Barfield were both Anthroposophists. Lewis did not like it at all. However, he mentions Steiner in a somewhat positive light in his Abolition of Man.
Steiner is certainly controversial whenever someone begins to notice the work. And am sure he said some pretty strange things anyone should look askance at. There is substantial and interesting work that comes out of Anthroposophy, however, notwithstanding everything else. Barfield’s Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry was one of them.