Notes on the AFF Conference

My Experience at the AFF Conference On Cults

Several months ago I received a phone call from Debra Snell, the president of People for Legal and Nonsectarian Schools (PLANS), inviting me to speak about OpenWaldorf.com at a conference on cults in Atlanta. The conference was called Understanding Cults, New Religious Movements, and Other Groups, and it was sponsored by an organization called the American Family Foundation (AFF). Initially, I was hesitant to speak for a couple of reasons.

First, I wanted to understand more about the conference and the background of AFF. I'm a free agent, and I was concerned about people drawing false conclusions about my association with AFF or PLANS. Second, I'm not much for labels, and I don't think labeling Waldorf as a cult is very constructive, so I was concerned about OpenWaldorf being perceived as an "anti-cult" effort against the Waldorf movement. Nothing could be further from the truth. OpenWaldorf is pro-information and pro-communication, NOT anti-cult.

After some research and careful consideration, I decided to accept Deby's invitation and attend the conference.

You can download a copy of my talk here:

The Story Behind OpenWaldorf.com PDF Version

The Waldorf Track

The entire day had a "Waldorf" track: three hour-and-a-half sessions on Waldorf education. While each speaker had a slotted time for their lecture, it was a lively and interactive day with lots of great dialog. The speakers included:

Featured Panelists

OpenWaldorf
Me (John Holland), Waldorf Parent and Webmaster of OpenWaldorf.com

PLANS (and friends of PLANS)
Sharon Lombard (Coordinator), Artist
Diana Winters, Editor and former Waldorf Parent
Dan Dugan, Audio Engineer and Secretary of PLANS

Waldorf Supporters
Michael Winship, Professor of History at University of Georgia
(his wife Eleanor came along for the ride)

Free Agent
Peter Staudenmaier, Graduate Student in History at Cornell and Faculty Member at the Insititute for Social Ecology

You can learn plenty about Sharon, Diana, Dan, and Peter by reading their posts on the Waldorf Critics mailing list and in the OpenWaldorf forums. It was pretty exciting to meet them after a few years of only knowing them through cyberspace. We have all had lively discussions with frequent agreements and disagreements online, and it was great to finally meet them in person.

I hadn't known Michael Winship before this conference. He's a professor of history at the University of Georgia. In his past life, he completed Waldorf teacher training and was a high school Waldorf teacher for in the 80s. His kids are also Waldorf grads, and they sound like great kids. Even though he's been out of Waldorf for a few years, he was really knowledgeable, and I got the sense that he was still plugged into the Waldorf community.

Oh, and Michael's wife Eleanor came along, too. She is a Waldorf music teacher, and she was really cool. I wish she had been formally invited to participate, because her contributions and insight during discussion time were really helpful.

When I met Michael, the first words out of my mouth were, "Total Spalding Gray look-a-alike, dude!" I meant it as the highest compliment (I love Spalding Gray), but I don't think he took it well. So, I felt sort of embarassed, because I really wanted him to feel welcome. I think he had the hardest job of the day. He was in the "hot seat," bearing all the criticisms of Waldorf on his shoulders alone. He handled it really well; he's super-smart and gracious. I was totally impressed.

Session I

"The Story Behind OpenWaldorf.com" - John Holland

I had the privilege of kicking off the day with my presentation "The Story Behind OpenWaldorf.com." I had been struggling with this presentation for months. First, I had a really hard time finding my voice for the presentation. I have so many thoughts about Waldorf education. What would I choose to talk about in my 30 min.? Second, how do I point out the concerns I have about how Waldorf communicates without invalidating the many positive aspects of the movement?

If you check out my presentation, you'll see I finally found my voice. First, I shared my personal experience with Waldorf. I've been reticent to do that, because I think the Waldorf community (which in my mind includes critics, too) get hung up on personalities. Who cares who I am? The important question is who are YOU, and what do you think about Waldorf? I also want to respect the privacy of others involved in my personal story: my daughter, her mom, our Waldorf teacher, and other folks from our local Waldorf community. I decided to focus on the personal experiences that led to the impulse behind OpenWaldorf.com.

Then I moved on to my thesis that the Waldorf community has some serious communication problems. There are so many rich and meaningful aspects of Waldorf education that aren't talked about much, and I think it causes problems for parents, kids schools, and the movement as these things come up to the surface. Essentially, I set the stage for a new paradigm for talking about Waldorf online.

I started running over my allotted time so I didn't get to share as much as I wanted to about the OpenWaldorf approach, but I felt I was able to get my main point across about OpenWaldorf being complete, accurate, and open to all people.

Michael Jumps In!

After my talk, Michael jumped in to the fray. He was pretty amped at first, and rightfully so. Imagine that you're a Waldorf parent, and a former teacher, but you don't really spend every waking second thinking about Waldorf. Then, get thrown into a hotbed with critics, and the new paradigm of OpenWaldorf. I don't think he knew what to expect, so he began his comments with a great deal of passion and energy.

He delivered a written response to Diana's paper and raised some very good points.

1. He pointed out that Waldorf teachers throw their energy into teaching. Sure, they usually have at least some interest in Anthroposophy, but it's not like they're all hardcore Anthroposophists. Good Waldorf teachers are interested in results with children, and that's where they focus their energy.
2. All Waldorf schools are different. Just because someone has had a negative experience at one school, it doesn't mean that all Waldorf schools are the same. He warned against sweeping generalizations against the entire Waldorf movement on the basis of experiences in only a few schools.
3. He had some interesting test results from Yuba City Charter, showing strong results compared to the average for the state of California. All the scores were at least 10% higher than CA average and it was noted that the school doesn't teach for the tests. The results seemed to suggest that Waldorf kids seem to perform well in spite of Waldorf's delayed academics.

His response was really good, and I have offered to host it here for the Waldorf community.

"How Anthroposophy's Beliefs Manifest in Early Waldorf Education" - Diana Winters

Diana Winters is so cool. We have had our differences, sometimes even sniping at each other online, and so I am so glad we met and got to hang out. We have a lot more in common than we disagree on. We really liked each other, and it was fun sharing the table with her.

Diana delivered a well-considered paper on her personal experience with the Anthroposophical implulse in Waldorf education at her school. She covered many topics, with her own personal experiences woven into her presentation as examples. She did a great job connecting the dots between Anthroposophy and Waldorf. I've never understood why the Waldorf community seems so apprehensive to make connections between Anthroposophy and Waldorf. Isn't that the point?!

I will link to Diana's talk if she posts it, or offer to host it here at OpenWaldorf.com.

Michael raised some interesting questions about what constitutes the "Waldorf community" and who's in it. As you know, I personally have been moving towards a more inclusive model, suggesting that the Waldorf community includes critics as well as supporters. He also pointed out that I had a tendency during my presentation to drift back-and-forth between referring to the Waldorf community as "us" and "they." Ultimately he felt that it was valid to for me to consider myself part of the Waldorf community which I really appreciated. He even said he liked OpenWaldorf and would recommend the site to others, which I thought was very gracious. Honestly, I think there are so many ways that OpenWaldorf is lacking, I felt glad to hear that he found some positive things about it.

Chaos! (sort of)

As the session ended, it devolved into minor chaos, with heated accusations and defenses flying from the critics towards Michael. Who can blame them? The critics have had very valid experiences of their own, and carry their torch for a more open Waldorf (no pun intended) passionately. At the same table, you have Michael hearing criticisms that are so different from his experience being hurled at Waldorf. His wife, a Waldorf teacher and graduate herself, is sitting right there, his amazing kids are Waldorf grads, and many people he loves and respects are Waldorf teachers. So, here you have both sides, on the one hand, you have the critics wanting their very real personal stories and findings about Steiner and Anthroposophy validated and addressed, and on the other hand, you have Michael wanting to make sure that the people he loves and respects, and the Waldorf he knows and loves, were not unfairly lumped into these criticisms. Michael maintained his composure well. It was intense, but the tension was understandable.

Those of you who participate in the OpenWaldorf forums have read my rants on tolerance and validating other people's Waldorf experiences. I managed to stay out of the fray, but it sort of pissed me off because I don't think these conversations are very constructive. Besides, it was time for lunch, and I was hungry!

Lunch

It turns out the lunch spread was pretty weak. Basically bowls of lettuce and tuna salad. I was sick of talking about Waldorf already (too much TV as a kid perhaps?), and I wanted to sneak away with Michael and his wife and talk about the current state of religion and politics in the U.S. As it turns out, we all ended up taking our lunch up to the lobby and having a variety of discussions about personal experiences and the Waldorf movement in general. I really enjoyed talking to Eleanor about Itzhak Perlman for a minute. Then I sort of played fly on the wall and just enjoyed being there with so many intelligent and passionate people.

Session II

"How Waldorf Schools are Promoted in the Media" - Dan Dugan

In retrospect, it's cool that I didn't get to hang with Michael/Eleanor 1-on-1 because I think having lunch together really helped us all chill out a bit and have a more constructive dialog in the remaining sessions. We all started to bond around the things we had in common and had some excellent dialogs over the course of the rest of the day.

Dan Dugan of PLANS spoke next, and he focused on "Waldorf and the Media." He looked on a special edition of the Utne reader that had scores of pages of Waldorf advertising. Personally, as a marketing communications professional,I think that it would be interesting to take a step back, and include advertising in a greater "media mix" of press coverage and Waldorf materials given to parents in person and the Internet. There are now well over a hundred stories in the OpenWaldorf Waldorf News Archives, and they cover a huge spectrum of subjects from student achievement and school profiles to expansion initiatives and problems at individual schools. But Dan did do an excellent job dissecting the ads and showing how a lot of the advertising neglects or misrepresents some of the most meaningful aspects of Waldorf education.

If Dan posts his paper, I will link to it, or offer to host it here at OpenWaldorf.

The group discussed the concern that "truth in advertising" is pretty much an oxymoron. I think it comes back to what I call Waldorf's "communication problem" and a tendency to present Steiner and Anthroposophy half-way to the general public. I don't think it's useful to address intent. Are we sneaky? Are we sloppy? Who knows, who cares? The fact of the matter is that often the way we talk about Waldorf is incomplete, let's work towards being more complete.

This discussion was more interactive, with responses from Michael and the rest of the room. Ironically, earlier in the day we had talked about the ethics of sensational advertising to attract people to a particular non-Waldorf movement.

Session III

"Race and Redemption: Racial and Ethnic Evolution in Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy" - Peter Staudenmaier

This final session was one of the most illuminating for me. Even though I was practically asleep during parts of it (I had flown out on the red-eye), I was able to get a better idea of the controversy surrounding Steiner and race. Peter and Michael talked about the controversy surrounding anthroposophy and racism. Peter began, painting a picture of Steiner's theories of the races, which include racial hierarchies. He read many quotes from Steiner, which were sometimes extremely complicated, and other times very straightforward. Michael was aware of Steiner's views, and addressed them carefully.

Michael again raised some interesting points, citing the different world Steiner lived in. Another thing that we discussed was the fact that Steiner was inconsistent on race. In fact, he contradicted himself on the issue often, which is going to happen with a very public speaker who lectured so much while he was alive. What do we make of the contradictions? Nonetheless, Michael was neither an apologist nor naive in how he raised these issues.

We also discussed some interesting ommissions between original German texts and their English translations. Most shocking was a collection of 13 lectures in the original German that had mysteriously been reduced to 12 in the English translation. The missing lecture was one none of us had ever heard of, and it had some very questionable content. "That sucks," Michael said, pointing out that it's just bad scholarship to do something like that. I think it also shows that Anthroposophists are free thinkers with different points of view on different subjects.

Goodbyes

The day ended with warm goodbyes. I felt that there was some real mutual understanding that grew over the course of the day. Michael and Eleanor expressed a great deal of sympathy for some of the worst experiences of the critics. And everyone was impressed with Michael's willingness to dialog from a free position, accepting some criticisms, rejecting others, but with a great deal of respect, commitment and concern for the entire Waldorf community. It was cool to feel like we had all accomplished something. However, I think it left us all hungry, and wanting more. This kind of dialog is so rare in the Waldorf community right now.

I also regretted we did not get to hang out personally, and just be human beings together.

Concluding Thoughts

I came away with a stronger sense of the fragmentation of the Waldorf community. Don't get me wrong, I have some pretty strong views of "what's Waldorf" but I also moved towards conceding that there is a spectrum of schools, teachers and experiences out there in the Waldorf community. It can "all" be happening: teachers with extreme devotion to Steiner, and teachers who consider Steiner less important. Schools that rigidly adhere to "traditional" Waldorf, and schools that are exploring new ways of expressing the pedagogy in their schools and communities.

We need more talks like this, in a less loaded context. It really is still so cloak-and-dagger in the Waldorf community. I feel like the critics are dying to "catch" the Anthroposophists, ready to leap on them and exclaim "see, I told you so!" with regards to many of their concerns on the nature of Waldorf. On the other hand, Anthroposophists seem to be uncomfortable with being so aggressively scrutinized. I get the sense that they just want to get on with the business of educating children their way. Personally, I feel like we need less polarized discussion, and a move towards greater understanding of our different experiences and opinions with regards to Waldorf. Unfortunately, I think this approach can be painful for all sides, but hey, no pain, no gain.

I sat through another interesting lecture that was not related to Waldorf, but instead discussed the nature of "anti-cult" activity. The lecturer asserted that neither side can do away with the other, and both sides need each other to exist. I fantasized about a more "open" Waldorf conference. The idea would be to bring together all sorts of people from the Waldorf community. This could be an "OpenWaldorf" conference of parents, teachers, and stakeholders willing to step outside the box, and think about the very real issues facing Waldorf today and how to overcome them.

I think we have a lot to learn from each other, and if we can do more listening and less shouting (or hiding), it is a positive step towards a more harmonious expression of Waldorf in the world. I want to thank everyone for supporting me in my participation of this conference, and I invite everyone to talk about this conference and my ideas in the OpenWaldorf forums:

The Pitch

Finally, if you have enjoyed my presentation and my notes from this meeting, please kindly consider donating some money to my Amazon tip jar to help defray the costs of my trip. It's a great way to express your commitment to the Waldorf community.