The Dutch Report

Christine (February 22nd, 2004):
"A third question arises in me. Please forgive me if you have illucidated this elsewhere - I do not have the time to search all of the archives of the past five or more years of discussion on other forums - have you seen examples of overt or covert racism in the practice of Waldorf Education. If so, would you please discuss these examples?"

Peter Staudenmaier (February 22nd, 2004):
The most important example, in my view, is the one I mentioned to you recently on the waldorf critics list, namely the "racial ethnography" curriculum in Dutch Waldorf schools, which was not discontinued until well into the 1990's. I hope it's okay with you if I simply quote some of what I wrote on the topic last year at the openwaldorf site (where you can also find vigorous discussion of this and related themes). Very briefly: Until the mid-1990's, Dutch Waldorf schools continued to teach courses on "racial ethnography" to 7th and 8th grade pupils. These courses were based squarely on Steiner's racial theories, and their role in the Waldorf curriculum was discussed extensively in the journal of the Dutch Waldorf movement. This longstanding practice changed only after the mother of a Waldorf student went to the press with her child's class notebooks about racial characteristics. The resulting media attention spurred the Dutch Anthroposophical Society and the Waldorf federation to review the "racial ethnography" curriculum, which they eventually decided to abandon. Public schools in the Netherlands had nothing remotely similar to these courses on "racial ethnography"; the only schools where such material was taught were Waldorf schools. This incident was the origin of the much-discussed "Dutch report" on anthroposophy and race.

Christine (February 22nd, 2004):
I would like to read more and understand more about what is meant by "racial ethnography" in the 7th & 8th grade curriculum. In seventh grade, to the best of my knowledge, Waldorf schools in Europe, Great Britain and the United States should be working with history as contrasted with the mythology explored from First through Fourth. Fifth Grade is a transitional year that ulminates in Ancient Greece and a combination of Greek mythology, which was an active part of their culture and that which we consider "historical" events and biographies. Sixth Grade sees the presence of mythology in Ancient Rome, but much less adherence to them as an active belief system in the lives of the Romans. Then we have the real historical drama of the Pax Romana and the life of Jesus Christ as a biography without which understanding what follows as history would be impossible. Also should have here the life of Mohammed. The stage then is set for Seventh Grade and the Renaissance up through the age of exploration. I don't at this moment understand how "racial ethnography" comes into it. Here are the definitions I have from Wikipedia:
Ethnography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Ethnography is the practice in cultural anthropology of writing a scientific description of an individual human society or of a situation within a society. It is also the name for the resulting text. The comparison of cultural details uncovered through ethnography is the province of ethnology. Classic ethnographies include Argonauts of the Western Pacific by Bronislaw Malinowski and The Nuer by E. E. Evans-Pritchard. More commonly read ethnographies include Nisa by Marjorie Shostak and Mama Lola by Karen McCarthy Brown.
Critiques of traditional ethnographic rhetoric and writing have come into increasing prominence, at least from the 1960s onwards. Critical, postmodern, and poststructural ethnographies often entail "confessional" writing, postcolonial critiques of canonical work, and literary interpretation and deconstruction.
Ethnology
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Ethnology is a genre of anthropological study, involving the systematic comparison of the beliefs and practices of different societies. Among its goals are the reconstruction of human history, and the formulation of laws of culture and culture change, and the formulation of generalizations about human nature.
Of course, the history of Western Civilization through the Age of Exploration and into the "Age of Revolution" (French, American, Industrial) includes a great deal of belief by the peoples of that time in racial and cultural superiorities and the colonialism and violence done in the name of those beliefs. Are you saying that the Dutch Waldorf Schools were teaching this history in such a
way as to promote the concept to the children that these ideas of racial superiority were justified?? If so, I would also be appalled! But I don't know without reading the actual reports if this is true. I would also have to state that nowhere in Rudolf Steiner's work would I find justification for such teaching. His long range and long term projections about spiritual development were never meant as a justification of the holding of views on racial superiority
of any kind. Nor were such ideas presented to adult audiences intended to be passed on to children of pre-teen years. To me personally, teaching about the atrocities of Western Civilization from the Crusades to Colonial America should have the opposite result entirely - that is to show the awfulness of ideas of racial superiority and the horrors that result from such ideas. This does not mean that we cannot find good in biographies such as those of Charlemagne, Joan of Arc, or even (dare I say it?) Christopher Columbus or Queen Victoria. ( I am personally very down on Columbus!) But they were who they were within their time periods and what they said, thought and did must be placed in context of everything that was "known" and "believed" at that time. How can the students come to be people who have the ability to intellectually understand what is
worthwhile and what is reprehensible in the history of humanity unless they fully "experience" each time period with as much imagination as possible? Introducing these historical ideas would be, in my opinion, necessary for any young person to understand what impelled major historical events. However, to allow them to walk away from that time period believing that those ideas should be
maintained and applied in our time would be to do exactly what Steiner describes below as "not moving forward" or "getting stuck in development" (my paraphrases).
Is this what the report on the Dutch Waldorf Schools concluded? That history was being taught in such a way as to promote, justify and give sanction to the ideas of racial, ethnic and/ or religious superiority as existed from say 1500 to 1900? I really want to know.