Rudolf Represented: How the Media Perceives Waldorf Education

“Every time I’d tell my mom that I talked to someone about Waldorf she’d get so worried that people would think we’re these weird, hippy cult people which is so dumb!” Olivia Porter, who currently attends Parsons School of Design, reflects on her Waldorf educated upbringing. Porter, who was homeschooled using Waldorf educational methods for four years feels that “It’s barely known by people who weren’t raised by it. Whenever I mention Waldorf to an everyday friend, it’s not known. I feel like it’s being ignored and it’s a super important way of education.”

Waldorf education was founded by Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect and esotericist in 1919. The curriculum uses creativity, imagination, and behavioral development as tools to structure the integrated and holistic education. There are over 1,000 Waldorf schools across 60 different countries, making it the most wide-reaching network of private education, but the education still remains widely unknown to the general population.

In media coverage in the past, Waldorf education and the community attached to the school have been referenced when speaking about hyper-alternative or hippy forms of schooling. The focus in these articles seemed to revolve around three main themes: the education’s lack of attention to literacy until grades 3 or 4, the attention to practical arts, and the spiritual beliefs of Steiner’s teachings. In more recent years, news platforms have begun to cite the education as the preferred school for children of Silicon Valley tech professionals. This is because of the utter lack of technology used until middle school.

The Waldorf community has responded well to this aspect of coverage. Jeffrey Spade is the Lower School Chair, Administrative Coordinator, and music teacher at the Rudolf Steiner School in Manhattan. When asked about these ties to the tech world he laughs, “We love that,” he says, nodding. “We love it.” Spade continues, “The media technology piece is worth looking at not because it’s alarming but because of how it’s done and when it’s done.”

In an older article, The New Yorker focused on aspects of the education such as, “The ‘etheric body’… anthroposophy (a complex spiritual philosophy) and eurythmic dancing (a shamanistic communion with the spirits).”

Spade’s brow furrows, “I think it’s dangerous to use those quotes because they’re taken out of context,” he says in reference to the general media focus on spiritual aspects of the education. “I mean you could look at it and it looks ritualistic if you don’t understand it, but that was completely misrepresented.”

May Taherzadeh, a Waldorf graduate from Denmark, recalls a time when she felt the education was entirely misrepresented and decontextualized. “There was a Danish comedian who went to Waldorf who made a satirical movie in 2004, in which he made fun of Waldorf – although he was happy with his education – and said Waldorf kids only play with wooden dolls without faces and made jokes of us and made us seem as if we were mentally ill. But most people watching it didn’t know his background, so they didn’t know it was meant as a joke.”

Taherzadeh’s fellow graduate and friend Celine Schneevoigt vigorously nods in agreement, “Another very well-known person, who almost has the same type of influence as Kanye has but in Denmark and a person many look up to, criticized Waldorf education in an interview,” she says. “This really hurt Waldorf education, because Waldorf kids generally don’t get that type of outlet and we are not able to voice our opinions on the matter.”

The feeling that one bad word can determine the acceptance of the education and community is one that resonates with other Waldorf students. Mirella Torresan attended Waldorf school in the Bay Area from 1^st-8^th grade, and still feels attached to the philosophy and a part of the community.

“Because there’s an underrepresentation of it in mass media, word of mouth affects the education way more than it should,” Torresan says. “I feel like I’ve met people who know very little about it, but have kind of heard basically good things, and they’re really open to learning more about it. And then if someone’s met one person with a bad experience they’re like, ‘That’s weird, fuck that.’”

Lucas Rosenblum has only attended the Rudolf Steiner School since sophomore year. Now, in his final year of high school, Rosenblum looks back on his decision to come to Waldorf. “I looked on the website and everything seemed to just resonate,” he says simply. Being rather new to the community, Rosenblum questions the technology use, “I mean in the lower school – I mean, I think they’re really extreme, absolutely no technology. But at the same time, you see kids at other schools like glued to the screen and learning from that. I mean, some of it’s okay! Just not too much.”

Waldorf Schools have been accused of being hyper-religious, racist, and even cultish. The Independent, a UK magazine, published an article in 2016 titled “Steiner schools have some questionable lessons for today’s children”. The article interviewed several families who testified to having horrific experiences with racism and religion. One parent even related Steiner’s teachings to the Holocaust, and has since founded the organization Parents for Legal and Non-Sectarian Schools (PLANS) to educate the public against the cult teachings of Waldorf schools. PLANS would regularly file lawsuits against various Waldorf institutions but haven’t done so in six years. This break seems to align with the enthusiastic press Waldorf education has been receiving lately. In 2015 The Huffington Post published an article praising the nurturing, well-rounded, and individualistic focus of the education. Just last year, The Conway Daily Sun wrote a piece that focused on “six Waldorf-inspired principles every family should adopt.” Just this past February, The Times UK published a piece that reiterated the many reasons for parents in Silicon Valley to make Waldorf their education of choice, “Last year Sean Parker, the billionaire and an early Facebook investor, admitted that he and the other creators of the publishing site had deliberately made it as addictive as possible. ‘God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains,’ he said.”

Taherzadeh also believes the times are changing for Waldorf education, “As Copenhagen has gotten more ‘green and organic’, it’s become more popular, exclusive, and fashionable to send your kids to Waldorf, and you feel this in the media as well.” She continues passionately, “We have recently gotten approved by the government in Denmark as a secondary school – we were not as such approved before – and maybe, we think, this will change the representation of Waldorf education in the media.”

Even as times are looking up for the school and community, Spade strives for even more well-rounded coverage. “I think if we could put together something that really showed the beautiful things that happen here, the things that make us unique, the things that are essentially Waldorf – this experience where you aren’t stuffed facts, where you discover, there’s this joy of learning. If we could do that, I think that would be highly successful.”