Anthroposophy and Ecofascism 110

Peter Staudenmaier writes in Paragraph 34 of Anthroposophy and Ecofascism:

Anthroposophy in Practice: Waldorf Schools and Biodynamic Farming
The school in Stuttgart turned out to the anthroposophists' biggest success, along with the nearby pharmaceutical factory that they named after the mythical Norse oracle Weleda. Waldorf schools are now represented in many countries and generally project a solidly progressive image. There are undoubtedly progressive aspects to Waldorf education, many of them absorbed from the intense ferment of alternative pedagogical theories prevalent in the first decades of the twentieth century. But there is more to Waldorf schooling than holistic learning, musical expression, and eurhythmics.

Peter Staudenmaier offers an interesting thesis, here not defended, that Waldorf schools are an amalgam of techniques "absorbed" from the general pedagogical milieu of the first decades of the twentieth centuries. It is an attempt to minimize Steiner's substantial contributions to the field of education, a polite way of claiming he stole all of Waldorf's good ideas from his contemporaries.

Now I am not sure by what means Peter Staudenmaier feels himself such an expert in the history of pedagogy as to make such a sweeping generalization. But then, to speak in authoritative, dismissive generalizations without any background knowledge or any sort of substantiation seems a typical gesture of Peter Staudenmaier’s towards Anthroposophy and Rudolf Steiner. Once again Peter Staudenmaier gets the essential points wrong, as I will show in the next several days.