SLAPS, or

Who’s in Charge?

Rudolf Steiner stated that Waldorf school teachers must be authority figures whom students unhesitatingly obey. It is for the children’s own good: “People [i.e., students] will have inner strength when we [i.e., Waldorf teachers] ... tell the children to do this and that today and tomorrow and the next day. They will do it out of respect for authority, because they know that in school someone must command.” [1] Such language seems more suited to an Army boot camp than a civilian school (“respect for authority,” “command”): e.g., “Soldiers will have inner strength when we sergeants tell the dog-faces to do this and that today and tomorrow and the next day. They will do it out of respect for authority, because they know that in the Army someone must command.” But let this go.

The following quotations contain softer terms to convey Steiner’s views on faculty authority: “The situation is that we need to create a mood, namely, that the teacher has something to say that the children should neither judge nor discuss ... An actual discussion lowers the content ... That is something I mentioned before in connection with ‘discussion meetings.’ They need to be avoided.” [2] In sum, the teacher is the font of unquestioned wisdom. Students have nothing to add: There should be no discussion. The teacher speaks (often by parroting or rephrasing Steiner), and the students drink it in. “The teacher must remain as calm as possible [when students are disobedient or disrespectful] and adopt an objective attitude. This does not mean lessening the teacher’s own authority. The teacher could certainly be the one to say, ‘Without your teachers you would learn nothing and remain stupid.’” [3]

Steiner also explained that Waldorf teachers should use their authority to lay out objective truth—in other words, Anthroposophical doctrines—even if the teachers need to dance around the issue a bit: “You need to make the children aware that they are receiving the objective truth, and if this occasionally appears anthroposophical, it is not anthroposophy that is at fault. Things are that way because anthroposophy has something to say about objective truth ... Anthroposophy will be in the school when it is objectively justified, that is, when it is called for by the material itself.” [4] For Steiner and this devotees, Anthroposophy is objective truth Thus, Steiner affirmed that Anthroposophy will pervade virtually every subject in the Waldorf curriculum, albeit it quietly, indirectly. The consequence is that Waldorf students are indoctrinated in Anthroposophy without being allowed to discuss or question what they are taught. [5]

Faculty authority, of course, also extends to maintaining discipline. Steiner professed to oppose corporal punishment, both because it does nothing to improve discipline, and—perhaps more tellingly—because it gives the school a bad reputation. Note that in the following quotation, Steiner refers to maintaining discipline only as a secondary objective, something that will “also” occur “if” the “ideal” of nonviolence in the classroom can be achieved: “There may be teachers in the Waldorf School who slap the children, and so forth ... I have heard it said that the Waldorf teachers hit children, and we have discussed that often. The fact is, you cannot improve discipline by hitting the children ... Perhaps no one [i.e., the teachers] wants to say anything about this, but my question is whether that is simply a story that has been spread like so many other lies, or have children, in fact, been slapped in the Waldorf School? If that has occurred, it could ruin a great deal. We must hold the ideal of working without doing that [i.e., hitting children]; discipline will also be better if we can avoid it.” [6]

“IF we can avoid it.” Steiner left a door open, there. And from time to time, he advised going through that door: “Under certain circumstances it may be necessary to spank a child ... I have to admit that there are rowdies ....” [7] So, is Steiner did not give gave Waldorf teachers a green light to use corporal punishment frequently, he at least gave them a yellow: Hit the kids if it is really necessary.

Bizarrely, Steiner also said: “If you give them [i.e., students] a slap, you should do it the way Dr. Schubert [one of the Waldorf teachers] does ... There are physical slaps and astral slaps. It doesn’t matter which one you give, but you cannot slap a child sentimentally.” [8] Notice that if “[i]t doesn’t matter which one you give,” then—even if we grant that “astral slaps” are preferable—physical slaps are permissible. A s for what Steiner meant about slapping kids “sentimentally,” I’m led by the foregoing quotations to conclude that he meant “If you’re gonna hit a kid, don’t softheartedly hold back or feel guilty. Just belt ‘em.”

Finally, it is worth noting that Steiner occasionally prescribed additional forms of physical punishment: “In cases of kleptomania, it is also good to punish children by having them sit for a quarter of an hour and hold their feet or toes with their hands.” [9] In cases of tardiness, “[W]hen there is some punishment ... you can be particularly effective if you allow [sic] them [students] to stand in some uncomfortable place ... We could also buy a number of little sheds [to put students in for punishment] ... They may even get cramps in their legs. We could have the sheds built in the shop class.” [10]

That’ll teach ‘em.

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ENDNOTES

[1] Rudolf Steiner, THE FOUNDATIONS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE (Foundations of Waldorf Education, 1) (Great Barrington, MA: Anthroposophic Press, 1996), p. 93.

[2] Rudolf Steiner, FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER (Anthroposophic Press, 1998), p.495.

[3] Rudolf Steiner DISCUSSIONS WITH TEACHERS, Foundations of Waldorf Education (Anthroposophic Press, 1997), p. 67.

[4] FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 495.

[5] Consider this statement by Anthroposophist John Fentress Gardner: "A youth whose childhood has been touched by the blight of 'critical thinking' will come to the moment on independent insight badly crippled ... Because skepticism has long since robbed him of part of his heart, he will now feel unable to embrace enthusiastically what he has come to understand." [THE EXPERIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE (Waldorf Press, 1975), pp. 127-128.] If any system of belief should be subjected to intense critical thinking and analysis, it is Anthroposophy. But this is precisely what Anthroposophists work to avoid. (Full disclosure: J. F. Gardner was my headmaster. My mother was his secretary. Mr. Gardner became a leading spokesman for (disguised) Anthroposophy in the US. Note that in 1975, my old Waldorf, along with its extension, The Waldorf Institute, had been built up sufficiently to create their own publishing house. Much of this success is attributable to Mr. Gardner. But soon thereafter, Mr. Gardner was involved in a scandal that almost ruined everything. See my essays “Unenlightened” and/or “I Went to Waldorf.)

[6] FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 547. Steiner was often intensely concerned about the school’s reputation. See, e.g., his worries about what people will say if they learn about certain occult beliefs at the school (Ibid., pp. 649-650: “Imagine what people would say if they heard that we say there are people who are not human beings ....”), his insistence that teachers avoid using the word “prayer” for the morning verse (Ibid., p.20: “We also need to speak about a prayer. I ask only one thing of you ... Avoid allowing anyone to hear you, as a faculty member, using the word ‘prayer.’”), and his distress over the poor results achieved by Waldorf students on important examinations (Ibid., p. 725: “The results gave a very unfavorable impression of our school to people outside.”)

[7] Ibid., p. 22.

[8] Ibid., p. 323.

[9] Ibid., p. 69.

[10] Ibid., p. 110.