Are waldorf schools ok for a Catholic

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There can be a wide range of reasons for choosing to homeschool. Don’t assume everyone is like you. If you don’t want to and don’t see a reason to homeschool, then don’t. Other parents might want to no matter what you think of the public schools. Why not give parents that right in every country?
 
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There can be a wide range of reasons for choosing to homeschool. Don’t assume everyone is like you. If you don’t want to and don’t see a reason to homeschool, then don’t. Other parents might want to no matter what you think of the public schools. Why not give parents that right in every country?
I think that your comment is a little bit exaggerated.
I am just saying what is reality in my country. Homeschooling is theme in news and Ministry of Education once in 10 years. I just checked - only students who have severe illnesses or disability can homeschool - it is in our law.
Children living on isolated and small islands have online school.
Those who want it here are minority.
I wrote that we don’t have reasons for it, we don’t have general reasons for it except for ill and disabled students. People maybe have some personal reasons but there aren’t reasons as those in other countries where parents homeschool children because of gender ideology, because of problematic education/school or religious reasons.
Also when there is question of education inspired by religion or something else we have enough catholic (public and private) schools, truly catholic schools. Same is with Muslim, Jewish and Orthodox schools. We have Waldorf, Montessori schools and other “alternative schools”. There are a lot of choices in small area for education of children. Many public schools are even better than private.

I didn’t write nor I think that people don’t have right to have homeschooling, our circumstances just aren’t the same as those in USA or UK or some countries where homeschooling is usual because of any reason, especially those I mentioned above.
 
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As I have no experience of theses school, two points to consider:

Are the anthroposophy theories are teached behind the pedagogy, explicitly or implicitly?

Do you know what is the religious profile of the family who come to this school? I guess, there is not a lot, if any traditional Catholic families?

How do you will handle your child faith formation with a school environment that is ideologically hostile to Catholicism with friends who are probably from atheistic families?
 
Do you live near any of the towns with a Catholic pre-school or primary school? Läroanstalter och skolor | Katolska kyrkan

Just because it is a Catholic/Religious School in Sweden, there are still secular laws that have to be followed like no prayer during classroom time and the national curriculum has to be followed. The local county council can say “No” to having religious schools within it´s area.

Your local “kommun” webpage should have a list with schools that operate within it´s borders. Also look into neighbouring “kommuner”. My plan is to have Catholic pre-schools, primary schools and an upper seconday school near every Catholic parish in the diocese. Cost per parish is about 700 000 000 SEK (which is about €70 000 000) just for the buildings 😟.

Regarding Waldorf schools I would say “no” to that and I have been teaching for decades. Montessori schools are mostly pre schools it seems like in Sweden or the primary school uses parts of the Montessori material in the lower grades. I like the Montessory pedagogy very much.
 
is anyone here versed in those schools and approaches that can educate me and enlighten me on wether or not they would be good for a Catholic girl to attend?
I am Catholic with children enrolled in a Waldorf school, (although I may go back to homeschooling depending on how long this COVID mess holds us all hostage). Somebody flagged my post about it, but feel free to PM me if you (or anyone else here) has any questions about the pedagogy and how, if at all, anthroposophy is playing a role in the education.
 
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I have several relatives who are in the Anthroposophical movement and Waldorf schools, including teachers, and although i recognize some good points in what they say and do, I am shocked by their degree of vehement anti-Catholicism. They often cite arguments that are plainly wrong.

Also Anthroposophical interpretations of the gospels are somewhat hairy to put it mildly. A lot of stuff is selectively being taken out of context to underpin principles of Anthroposophy, including reincarnation. They have lots of really wierd and creepy prayers that sort of displace God and pray to all sorts of everyday things instead such as praying to salt or to water.

Fortunately, and as far as I can see, they keep most of that out of the education side, so they typically won’t tell these things to your child directly, but this is the sort of thing the teachers have read and done during their training, and sometimes you need to bear that in mind to understand what they are talking about.

Another thing about Waldorf schooling is that it is very group and community focussed. My dad went to such a school as a small child and he was always a little ahead of the others, a strong thinker and somebody who asked questions rather than obeying orders. He always said the school was not set up to deal with this. So rather than giving him more difficult assigments to stretch him further, he was forced to do stuff that was too easy for him because all kids were expected to be in the same sort of group and teachers had very strict and inflexible ideas about what assignments were age appropriate. For example he got punished for teaching himself to read. He found the entire process externely boring, which is why he asked his parents to let him go to a different school.
 
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I started reading about Waldorf schools and we went and visited one. After doing due diligence I am convinced that Waldorf is not right for our daughter and would pollute her deeply on a spiritual level. Montessori schools might be a better fit for her but I would never put her in a Waldorf school. They are basically pagan schools.

This may sound crazy but after visiting the Waldorf school and deeply considering putting my daughter there I had an evening and a night where I felt vulnerable to demonic energy. This is something I have not experienced since I left the New Age movement 20 years ago.
 
I am sorry that you have this horrible experience, demonic or not, but you understand it as deep awarness, and now you know clearly what to not choose.

I pray and hope that you would find a good school for your daughter.
 
This may sound crazy but after visiting the Waldorf school and deeply considering putting my daughter there I had an evening and a night where I felt vulnerable to demonic energy. This is something I have not experienced since I left the New Age movement 20 years ago.
This, absolutely.

I felt exactly this after visiting an art show of paintings and sculptures done by Waldorf pupils during a class assignment. I could help but feel it was all rather dark and that maybe the children weren’t aware of what they were doing.

When I tried discussing this with my Waldorf relatives I was totally stonewalled. It’s not an aspect they even want to consider.
 
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We get into a lot of similar discussions over Dungeons and Dragons, yoga, and Harry Potter. We’ll have to agree to disagree. I really don’t think my children are enrolled in an evil, demonic school and have encountered zilch against my Catholic faith.
When I tried discussing this with my Waldorf relatives I was totally stonewalled. It’s not an aspect they even want to consider.
Well, what do you even mean by “dark?” Here’s some artwork typical of Steiner schools. I just grabbed it off of an image search. I suppose you could turn anything into “dark” and “evil” if you’re out looking for it.

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(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
 
I just grabbed it off of an image search. I suppose you could turn anything into “dark” and “evil” if you’re out looking for it.
Just as you can hide anything if you carefully select what you show and cut it off from its context.
 
I promise I didn’t see a bunch of satanic images and select two innocuous ones.

The bottom line is that there is no Vatican statement indicating that it is a sin for parents to send their children to Waldorf school. Lurkers and participants in this thread should be aware that the opinions expressed in this thread are just that. The rest of us will exercise our prudential judgment.
 
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