Talk:Waldorf education/Archive 11

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Archive 5

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Archive 9

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Dead links

Dead links should not be removed, but the appropriate template added to indicate the problem so it can be fixed. hgilbert (talk) 22:12, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Given the arbitration ruling on this article, I think editors should be zealous in removing unsourced material. Alexbrn (talk) 04:40, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps you could reread WP:Link rot, which explicitly says "Do not delete cited information solely because the URL to the source does not work any longer." hgilbert (talk) 11:08, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like a great way to introduce anything you like into the article. Remarkable claims that are not properly sourced should be removed as a show of good faith - whether the guidelines insist they be removed or not. Is the intention to produce a decent article here, or simply to introduce whatever unsourced nonsense the Waldorf movement wants to push?76.170.168.122 (talk) 13:56, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Here's what the tag at the top of this page says: " Please supply full citations when adding information, and consider tagging or removing unciteable information." Sounds right to me. 76.170.168.122 (talk) 13:58, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Then you don't understand what a dead link is. It's a citation to a webpage that once linked, but the URL has changed. This is not unciteable, it's just a matter of fixing the link, usually an easy thing to do once someone notices that it's no longer active. Thus the Dead links template. hgilbert (talk) 18:15, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Last time I checked, there were several links that require repair. Those "dead" links which are making extraordinary claims should be repaired or the claim removed immediately. Some have been "dead" links for months. 76.170.168.122 (talk) 16:30, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Just mark any you find as dead links using the template {{dead link}}. I just fixed the only link that was so marked, which wasn't even a citation (it was in the additional readings section at the end). hgilbert (talk) 22:10, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Focus on the content of the article rather than the other editors

Alexbrn, I request that you focus on the article content and not on the other editors, assuming their good faith. Your recent edits on this talk page here, here and here amount to harassment making me (at least) "feel threatened or intimidated, and the outcome may be to make editing Wikipedia unpleasant for the target, to undermine them, to frighten them, or to discourage them from editing entirely." Maybe that's not your intention, but that's the very real effect.

So rather than lashing out at the other editors, I request that you focus on the arguments about the content of the article. Thanks, EPadmirateur (talk) 18:36, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

EPadmirateur — I am not "lashing out" but I (wearily, oh so very wearily) take COI editing very seriously. When a COI is in question it is the editor who is the focus of the problem. If COI-tainted editors follow Wikipedia guidelines, then these problems go away. Are you too saying these guidelines can be safely ignored? That's a genuine question, BTW. Alexbrn (talk) 20:08, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

I disagree that the editor(s) and their supposed motivations should be your focus. We all have a point of view and various motivations. Our job as editors is to focus on the content of the articles. If you are constantly trying to "smoke out" the hidden motivations of other editors (for example, here, here and here) and, having supposedly determined them, using those supposed motivations to judge the validity of their edits, you are making a serious mistake, ignoring the precept to assume good faith. Then if you use your personal judgment -- based on your opinions and surmises -- as the basis to bully other editors, cowing them into submission by using terms like "COI-tainted", you are guilty of harassment.

My main motivation in working on WP articles in areas that interest me is to counteract what I have encountered as bullying by certain POV-pushing editors in articles like Rupert Sheldrake, Mae-Wan Ho and Reincarnation research, as well as earlier in this article. (I don't count you among those editors, BTW, because I have found your edits of this article to be, by and large, fair and balanced.)

I know the WP rules, I try to follow them and I try to bring a neutral point of view to the articles I edit. (Perhaps you missed my earlier suggestion about this article.) I believe Hgilbert knows the rules also and strives to be neutral as well. If you haven't noticed, nearly all of the changes you have made to this article have not been challenged by me (or by Hgilbert for that matter).

So I really think you are mistaken about evaluating edits as "COI editing" and editors as "COI-tainted" rather than objectively evaluating the proposed changes on their own merits. --EPadmirateur (talk) 02:05, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

EPadmirateur — you didn't answer my question. Are you saying that WP guidelines on COI can be safely ignored for this article? Because that's what it looks like. Alexbrn (talk) 08:11, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Hm, I thought I did answer it: the answer is yes and no. No, the COI guideline can't be ignored but you are handling the issue in a way that violates the higher-precedent guideline, namely not to harass other editors. From what Hgilbert has said, he has disclosed his COI. I suggest that you stop responding with "COI-tainted" accusations and deal with the proposed edits to the article, with the full knowledge from whom they are coming. If the edit biases the article, then the response ought to be WP:NPOV or WP:UNDUE or whatever, not "COI-tainted editor". The editors of this article know the WP rules and try to abide by them. I suggest again that you assume good faith here. Does that make it clearer? --EPadmirateur (talk) 03:33, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Hgilbert should not be removing text from the article, cited text placed by someone without a conflict of interest. Yet he continues to do so, for instance here where he removes text cited to Jelinek/Sun, saying that the paper is not peer reviewed. Again, he removes Jelinek-cited text with this deletion a few minutes later, leaving an orphaned Jelinek cite in place. A bot fixed the orphaned cite nine minutes later. Finally, Hgilbert removed the third Jelinek cite, saying that the paper was "excluded by arbitration". I typed "Jelinek" and "Waldorf" into the Wikipedia search function and found no such arbitration ruling.

The Jelinek/Sun research paper is cited by four other scholars which establishes its credentials for our purpose. Dr. David Jelinek actually helped a Waldorf school update its science program in response to parent requests—he's not an enemy of Waldorf.

The problem here is that Hgilbert continues to make controversial changes to the article, removing negative findings from Jelinek/Sun, yet he is restricted from doing so by the 2006 ArbCom ruling. We are beyond "good faith" here with Hgilbert, and into damage control—the protection of the encyclopedia's NPOV pillar. Hgilbert must not remove cited text. Binksternet (talk) 11:21, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

EPadmirateur — what you seem to be saying is that AGF "trumps" COI, so in effect the guidelines around COI needn't be followed, and that mentioning them (especially repeatedly, as I do in Hgilbert's case) violates AGF. That's just wrong ... and your fanciful wikilawyering accusation of harassment is unfounded. See WP:HA#NOT, and note "unfounded accusations of harassment may be considered a serious personal attack and dealt with accordingly." I think you are mistaken in thinking COI and AGF are points on the same axis. I happen to think COI editors are not editing in bad faith, since they often truly believe that are making the article "better" and "more neutral"; it's just their COI clouds their judgement. That is why (for the 100th time) they should not be editing pages where that COI compromises them. Alexbrn (talk) 05:31, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

WP:HA#NOT states "it must be emphasized that one editor warning another for disruption or incivility is not harassment if the claims are presented civilly, made in good faith and in an attempt to resolve a dispute instead of escalating one". I think all we are asking for is that this policy be followed. hgilbert (talk) 04:28, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

There is no "dispute" so far as I am concerned; just the fact of editorial COI problems in this article. If you're asking me to stop pointing that out, to stop being alert to the damage COI causes, or to stop suggesting that WP's own guidelines are better followed than ignored – then sorry, no. Alexbrn (talk) 04:39, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Hgilbert, if you are done reverting cited article text, or removing cited article text that you don't like, then everybody here is done calling you out on your conflict of interest. If instead you wish to continue removing the negative bits of cited text then you should expect to be called on the floor, and to be subject to ArbCom oversight. The decision is in your hands, not Alexbrn's. Binksternet (talk) 05:00, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

As said above, I am trying to follow the arbitration guidelines about WP:RS. I thought that the Jelinek piece contravened these guidelines; I now agree that it did not. I have apologized for the confusion. FYI: I have removed many a piece of positive text that contravened these guidelines, back when this was a problem. hgilbert (talk) 09:41, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Alexbrn, please go back to my original statement above: your recent edits on this talk page here, here and here amount to harassment making me (at least) "feel threatened or intimidated, and the outcome may be to make editing Wikipedia unpleasant for the target, to undermine them, to frighten them, or to discourage them from editing entirely." Again, maybe that's not your intention, but that's the very real effect.

To be really clear here, I take your focus on me as a real, not fanciful, personal attack. I certainly feel it as that and Hgilbert may feel the same. I am not wikilawyering what I feel is a repeated personal attack. In bringing this up, I am trying to make you aware of the situation as I feel it. So I am requesting that you stop focusing on the other editors here and focus on the article's content. Your focus on editors makes the atmosphere in this article extremely unpleasant.

With respect to your repeated invocation of "COI-tainted" editing, "Wikipedia's policy against harassment takes precedence over the WP:COI guideline". If you think that the other editors' judgment is "clouded" but done in good faith, then you should be open to reasoned negotiation on proposed changes. --EPadmirateur (talk) 05:17, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

It is completely untrue to claim I am "focused" on you - as far as I am aware, we've only encountered one another a handful of times around this topic; In WP terms harassment is likened to stalking ... are you really claiming that? WP further defines harassment as something "which is meant to cause distress to the user". Is that what you mean? If so, per WP:HA#NOT you yourself are making a serious personal attack on me by accusing me of personally-directed malicious intent — which I can assure you is simply not true. I ask you study the heavy weight WP puts in its definition of "harassment", and withdraw this serious false accusation. If you do not withdraw, we will need to take your complaint to dispute resolution, as I won't have it.

The three edits that you claim amount to harassment are:

[1] noting your involvement in coordinated editing and system gaming in conjunction with Hgilbert, and noting your narrow topic focus in the light of no declared COI
[2] pointing out what I consider to be COI/NPOV about a proposed edit that you and Hgilbert and championing
[3] pointing out (again) that you have in the past been recruited by Hgilbert as friendly assistance (in the context of him claiming a "2-1" majority to force his edit).

This is not harassment. Not liking the fact that you've been found out being involved in coordinated editing and gaming the system, is not a reasonable basis for claiming that you are being harassed. Note that "tracking a user's contributions for policy violations" is explicitly not harassment per WP:HA#NOT. With your contribution history, look at it from my perspective: Hgilbert starts proposing what looks like a POV edit, you are then in support, and Hgilbert then starts writing [4] "two editors agree" and "Vote seems to be 2 to 1" (as if WP worked on votes). Given the blatant damage Hgilbert has wrought on this article (as recently witnessed over the Jelinek content) I believe it is Wikipedia's interest to be alert to the damage COI can cause, don't you? Alexbrn (talk) 06:15, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Map showing Lemuria

The map in the Curriculum section implies that it is a map given by Steiner, showing the geographical position of Lemuria. There is no attribution given to this map. I have never heard of or seen any map given by Steiner of the position of any prehistoric region that Steiner mentioned in his lectures or books. Therefore it is completely misleading to include this in the article. --EPadmirateur (talk) 20:45, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Err, what implies it's Steiner's map? Any more than the picture of a Steiner doll implies it was made by Steiner? And what's misleading anyway - a mythical continent is a mythical continent isn't it? Alexbrn (talk) 21:08, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Your caption quote implies that the map depicts what Steiner asserted about Lemuria. Even the characterization of a "mythical continent" is not accurate. What specifically does Lyons describe as Steiner's view of Lemuria and what is it based on? --EPadmirateur (talk) 22:10, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it implies it. Lemuria is a concept that has a common usage (as covered in the article on Wikipedia) - we should use that unless there is some source that says Steiner used it in a particular way (is there?). Illustrations are meant to, well, illustrate. Adding "(Not Steiner's map: image for illustration purposes only)" would overcome this objection, but seems a bit ... odd. WP:PERTINENCE states "images should look like what they are meant to illustrate, even if they are not provably authentic images" (WP's italic), and "effort should ... be made to improve quality and choice of images or captions in articles rather than favoring their removal". Have you got a good image of Lemuria; or even better one of Atlantis? I imagine there are some fantastic colourful picture of that! Alexbrn (talk) 22:33, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

As I said, I have never heard of or seen any map given by Steiner of the position of any prehistoric region that Steiner mentioned in his lectures or books. Where did the map you posted come from? Was any source given? What specifically does Lyons describe as Steiner's view of Lemuria and what is it based on? What's the specific source that the geological epochs of Lemuria and Atlantis are being taught in Waldorf schools? I don't have access to the dissertation. Is it available on-line? --EPadmirateur (talk) 01:23, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

It is pretty odd to illustrate the curriculum of the Waldorf schools with a map that is not used in Waldorf schools. Surely there is a more appropriate illustration. hgilbert (talk) 11:15, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

The Lyons piece can be obtained from the CSUC library server here. Lemuria is seen as a geological thing, so the map makes a good illustration. Alexbrn (talk) 06:12, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the map is not pertinent. Linking to the wiki page on Lemuria is better. More importantly, however, is that the citation is wrong. This image does not come from Jelinek's paper. No one knows where it comes from as far as I can tell? The image should be accurately cited or it should be removed. If no standards are made in this regard, the whole page could be filled with illustrations or images that are not sourced in the subject matter.Jellypear (talk) 16:15, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

See WP:PERTINENCE. Good WP articles have copious illustrations, and the rules for them are fairly relaxed - illustrations can even be oblique (a cat's claws for an article on aggression is given as an example IIRC).

However, the ref can come out - that's redundant. Alexbrn (talk) 16:34, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for removing the reference. Is there a reason why the actual source of this image cannot be referenced or cited? The issue for me is this. WP:PERTINENCE says that "Images must be (1) relevant to the article that they appear in and (2) be significantly and directly related to the article's topic". I read this to mean that the image meets criteria (1) in that Lemuria is discussed in the article text but fails on criteria (2) because it is not significantly and directly related to the article's topic. The article's topic is Waldorf Education. Looking at it another way, the images currently contained in the article are of a Waldorf school, a Waldorf Classroon, the founder of the school system which bears his name, and a Waldorf doll. All of these items are significantly and directly related to the article's topic, their sourcing is clear and their very descriptions bear the word "Waldorf." The Lemuria image--whereever it comes from---belongs in an article on Lemuria and not in an article on Waldorf education unless said image is significantly and directly related to the article's topic (Waldorf Education). One way this could be achieved is if it's an image from a teacher training manual, a chalk drawing, a textbook, a classroom storybook or something of that nature. Then, its status as something "significantly and directly related to the article's topic" could be evaluated. Without any sourcing, its impossible to do this. Jellypear (talk) 18:53, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Strongly agree. This is so peripherally related to Waldorf education that I don't know why it is here. It's only relation appears to be Carroll's vague suppositions that something "like" this might possibly influence the education. Even Carroll, hardly an authority on the subject, only offers us two degrees of probabilistic separation.

Illustrations clearly should be of actually related matters, not of something that might possibly be similar to something that might possibly be related. hgilbert (talk) 11:09, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Hgilbert, as a COI-tainted editor you shouldn't be trying to push a POV here. Again: see WP:COIU and WP:COIBEST for some guidelines you should follow.

The topic of an article varies and refines as the article progresses. Illustrations illustrate what's current in the text. That is obvious, and looking at some featured content on WP will quickly verify it. Lemuria is specifically mentioned, so an illustration is apt. (Since Lemuria is obviously fictional it goes without saying there are no "real" pictures). Alternatively, if somebody can think of a better - preferably more colourful - illustration of Waldorf pseudoscience, please suggest it. Another alternative is that sketch Steiner drew of black people, white people, etc. Since that image is out-of-copyright it shouldn't be too hard to source a copy ... though of course that image could also be used in our racist controversy section ... Alexbrn (talk) 11:26, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Ummm... the POV that something that no one claims is actually related to Waldorf education should not be used as an illustration?

Do you suggest that Lemuria is actually related to Waldorf? What is your source for this? hgilbert (talk) 11:30, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

It ("the geological position that earth evolved through Lemurian and Atlantean epochs and is now in its fifth post-Atlantean epoch") is included in the Waldorf curriculum materials as analyzed by Jelinek/Sun, and described there, among other of Steiner's pseudoscientific notions, as "reason enough for some critics to discredit Waldorf science education all together". Alexbrn (talk) 11:41, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I think the image should stay based on the fact that Jelinek and Sun mention the poor science/pseudoscience of WE, including Lemuria and Atlantis epochs. Binksternet (talk) 13:16, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

This picture of Lemuria is a problem. As I have already mentioned, no one has come up with a source for it. This is unacceptable. It needs to be sourced sooner rather than later if it is to stay. In addition, WP:PERTINENCE clearly states that the image must be significantly and directly related to the article's topic. The article's topic is Waldorf education, not Lemuria or even Steiner's views on Lemuria. Those wiki pages would be better places for this image. But even in the case of Steiner's page, ideally the image would depict how Steiner envisioned or depicted Lemuria. I am no expert on this topic but presumably anyone who had anything to say about Lemuria put their own twist on things. One person's depiction wouldn't necessarily agree with all others. As for POV, even insinuating that 'some illustration of Waldorf pseudoscience needs to be bargained out between the editors in this section is wrong. There are either well-sourced, pertinent images that further inform the reader or there are not. Linking to the Lemuria page supports a reader's needs far better, and in a far more neutral way, than providing an unsourced image that has dubious connections to the article topic. Finally, as I mentioned in the Jelinek & Sun (2003) section, they do not argue that anything about Atlantis or Lemuria has made its way into "the curriculum" (which can be found in their appendix.) These notions can be found in books that are within the anthroposophical oeuvre and that were written before 1965. Jelinek & Sun (2003) are clear that these texts must be removed from any teacher preparation considerations but argue that discrediting Waldorf science all together on the basis of their existence would be throwing out the baby with the bathwater. That is the whole point of them assessing the education and making clear recommendations for improvement at all. Jellypear (talk) 17:44, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Pete K is back?

A recent IP editor, User:76.170.168.122, appears to mirror the behavior of the earlier User:Pete K, who was forbidden to edit these articles and talk pages. As this would not be the first time this editor tried to resurrect himself here, I seriously question whether a checkuser may be called for unless we can confirm that this is not the same identity in some other way. hgilbert (talk) 09:45, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

I request that you focus on the article content and not on the other editors, assuming their good faith. 76.170.168.122 (talk) 12:45, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

A simple no would suffice, if you are not this user. Banned users are not allowed to edit here, regardless of other guidelines. hgilbert (talk) 15:41, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

A simple yes or no answer seems to elude you when you have been asked. ;) 76.170.168.122 (talk) 15:50, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Jeez, we take down the notice after ~eight years of inactivity and look what happens... I guess next time we have to wait at least sixteen. a13ean (talk) 16:41, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Eugenie Carol Scott , expert

Why does this article not carry any of the Waldorf criticism written by Eugenie Scott, an expert on science education, an activist against the teaching of creationism, and the executive director of the non-profit National Center for Science Education. In 1994 she wrote the paper "Waldorf Schools Teach Odd Science, Odd Evolution" for Reports, the organ of NCSE (page 20, volume 14, Winter 1994. [5]) A copy of the paper is hosted at waldorfcritics.[6] Because of Scott's topic expertise her opinion will be useful. Binksternet (talk) 20:15, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Okay, she's booted Carrol out from the pseudoscience section (being a superior source). Alexbrn (talk) 13:51, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree she is a credible source generally. However, unlike Jelinek & Sun (2003) for example she does not appear to have conducted or published any research into Waldorf schools themselves. This wikipage will be most neutral and informative when the various types of evaluations are better distinguished from each other. The issue will cut both ways. There are otherwise credible individuals who praise Waldorf education yet have never conducted or published any research that would inform their glowing opinion. The temptation for editors concerning anyone falling into this category is clear. These sources tend to appear in media pieces and generally offer up juicy soundbites. However they can be misleading on a page like this if the person's overall impeccable credentials are used to imply more specific knowledge about this area. Thus, there is a potential for editors to "free ride" on an individual's general reputation in order push POV. Again, this is a potential danger all around. Anyone have ideas about how to mitigate this issue in a responsible way? Jellypear (talk) 15:05, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Dugan? Really?

A photo of Dan Dugan? Notable because...??? I am truly puzzled. hgilbert (talk) 16:12, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

It's just an illustration, admittedly not as nice and colourful as some of the others. A picture of a courtroom (even the courtroom) would do just as well, or that Steiner race picture. Or anything pertinent to the text ... we need illustrations! Alexbrn (talk) 16:20, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Alexbrn, you are taking a very liberal interpretation of the wiki guidelines for illustrations. Some discussion with the other editors would be nice. Jellypear (talk) 16:32, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't think so. If you look at a featured article like Scouting the illustrations follow the text, and are even sometimes "off" the text (like the 50p coin image in the Scouting article, not mentioned in the text). Alexbrn (talk) 18:04, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

In the scouting example, a fundamental difference is that every picture shows scouts, a scouting activity, a scouting memorial, etc. The images are sourced directly from the subject of the wiki article. If one thinks broadly about what the images on a school system's pages would look like, one would expect to see examples of student work, students engaged in study, teachers teaching, etc.,---illustrations that provide more information about the article's topic. A sound engineer from San Francisco? Dude's got his own page. It is a rather strange choice given that there aren't even any Waldorf students depicted. Jellypear (talk) 18:39, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

For this reason, Damrell is not much better. hgilbert (talk) 08:23, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Studies Section

this item ADHD A 2010 study of 61 children exhibiting symptoms of Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) concluded that "children with ADHD symptoms receiving anthroposophic treatment had long-term improvement of symptoms and quality of life."[110] seems to have no relation to Waldorf Education. Why is it in the long boring section on studies? --Rocksanddirt (talk) 19:11, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree this section is long and boring -- and I love studies! I encourage other editors to integrate these studies into the text, as appropriate. Jellypear (talk) 02:18, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

UNESCO

The UNESCO stuff seems unsourced. I can't quite see what being said that's notable here anyway ... I propose removing this content. Alexbrn (talk) 13:23, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Why do you think this is unsourced? The link is right there to go to the UNESCO website and count the involved schools as well as find the agreement entering "Friends of Waldorf Education" into official relations in 1991. Jellypear (talk) 14:32, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

where's the list? Alexbrn (talk) 14:39, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I can't figure out how to get a link here. Sorry. Newbie. Anyway, follow the UNESCO link in this page and you'll go to a wiki article about the program and then there are further UNESCO links to get what you need. Also, "Friends of Waldorf Education" is the English translation of the German foundation name "Friends of Waldorf Education" if that helps too. Jellypear (talk) 15:13, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I'd followed those links but couldn't find the list (or just a statement of numbers) I was looking for to source the article text. Alexbrn (talk) 15:24, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I uploaded the document this was sourced to to scribd.com and added a link. Perhaps someone can find the original document online and replace the scribd link with this. hgilbert (talk) 00:27, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

COI template

For myself, I think that since this template was applied the article text has been well-reviewed and all the sources - including their nooks and crannies - inspected and dealt with, if necessary. This is not to deny the article has a fair way to go to become "good". Still, I propose that the COI template is now removed from (just) the Article page. What do other editors think? Alexbrn (talk) 18:04, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes. COI problems have been properly managed. Binksternet (talk) 19:51, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Done Alexbrn (talk) 19:41, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Sources

Here are some quality sources.

Best of all, perhaps, is Anthroposophie in Deutschland by Helmut Zander. Chapter 15 is about Waldorf education. It's in German, but is a scholarly work of high quality.
Woods, Ashley, and Woods, Steiner Schools in England. Official report of the school inspection agency of the UK govt. Detailed descriptions of the curriculum, etc. This was used in the article, but was removed for reasons unknown to me.
Carolyn Edwards, Three Approaches from Europe: Waldorf, Montessori, and Reggio Emilia

Also possibly useful:

Mary Barr Sturbaum, Transformational possibilities of schooling: A study of Waldorf Education (dissertation, Indiana Univ. school of education) hgilbert (talk) 03:26, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Self-published sources issue

A large number of sources have been excised from this wiki article recently. As a courtesy to fellow editors, I think it would be a good idea when deleting references to also report the specific reasons in Talk since the box for describing editing rationale doesn't allow many characters. Doing so will help other editors better understand the reasons a certain citation has been removed and avoid using it again in the future. Ideally, this will save everyone time in the long run as well as avoid disputes or edits/undos over the same citations again and again. For example, Rist and Schneider (1979) was recently removed. I have no opinion about this particular source other than to note that it was not published by a Waldorf or Anthroposophical publisher. So, it would seem to pass the ban on self-published materials. On the other hand, there is very little information about the authors and the article does not appear to be peer-reviewed in a way that academic articles, dissertations and books are. That being said, this wiki article also contains much material that is not peer-reviewed and may be of dubious accuracy (eg., media commentary, position papers) so not everything on the page has to meet this very high standard. It would be helpful to know an editor's specific rationale for allowing or disallowing certain citations and have a better way to track and search what is the consensus for each one. Jellypear (talk) 16:17, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Rough rules of thumb:

Peer-reviewed nearly always okay; University Presses nearly always okay; mainstream news media nearly always okay for reportage.
Of the remainder:
Authored by somebody "involved in Waldorf", or from an Anthroposophical source: generally bad.
Dissertations, general books, conference papers, research reports etc.: assess on the basis of whether there is evidence of editorial oversight, whether they are cited by good RS publications, and how "heavy" the claim they are making is.
Normal WP caution to apply to web sites, self-published, primary, etc.

In the case of Rist & Schneider the publication is not peer-reviewed, there is no evidence of editorial oversight (quite the opposite, a disclaimer from the publisher stating these are the author's views alone), and the authors are categorized in the foreword as equivalent to "representatives of the staff of the Hibernia School", which might place them in the "involved with Waldorf" category. So, a clear fail. Alexbrn (talk) 16:35, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Regarding Rist and Schneider (1979) this is the kind of information that is helpful for other editors. I had missed that they were "representatives of the staff of the Hibernia School." As an FYI, many manuscripts/working papers or studies published or distributed by an organization have the disclaimer that the contents are the author's views alone. This should not necessarily be interpreted as "no evidence of editorial oversight" or the opposite of editorial oversight. I am not seeking to debate this particular citation; my aim is just to encourage editors to clearly state their reasons for disallowing a citation so there is a record of it. It is possible that the contents of this or any excised piece could be useful in some way. Apart from entirely self-published materials making claims about controversial issues, what makes a source "bad" is mainly how it is used. If there were a need for a section on the Hibernia School (which there is not) this would actually be a highly relevant source to include in some capacity. Jellypear (talk) 16:57, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, common sense applies of course (and there's one case in this article where we're using a press release because ... there's nothing else). The point about the disclaimer is that to an unwary reader this might have seemed like some kind of UNESCO-sanctioned report; which it wasn't. I think even if we were describing the Hibernia school this source would need to be used with the utmost care, if at all. Alexbrn (talk) 17:06, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

The features of this self-published sources ban are alarming to me. For those of you have been around for a while, please forgive me if you feel this is dredging up old stuff. My aim is to both understand the actual rules, as well as the standpoint of various editors. However, I am concerned by how this definition and ban of self-published materials operates when a specific claim is made in a POV publication (which is then by rights allowed to stand for its own, possibly biased, views WP:RELIABLE). As everyone can see from the Dugan & Daar situation, once it could be agreed that their views were published in a POV publication, realizing the appropriate way to report it in wiki (ie., as a reliable source for this viewpoint) came quickly thereafter. The problem as I see it is that there is a structural imbalance between POV statements that can be made about Waldorf education and the POV statements that can be made for Waldorf education in response. Let me be clear. There are enough reliable third party sources for most things on this page that self-published sources like SteinerBooks, etc., don't need to be used in order to have a sufficiently informative and neutral wiki page. I'm not trying to muddy the waters. The problem lies entirely when a disputable/disputed statement about Waldorf is expressed in a non-peer reviewed source. Going back to the example of Dugan and Daar, the current resolution occurred as a result of User:Alexbrn's willingness to write in a fair work-around that was able to both exclude "the rebuttal" yet keep to the spirit of unreliable sources being mainly reliable for the groups they represent. In another wiki page, the claim/rebuttal format would have been a matter of course. So, what concerns me is this structural imbalance that now requires a very high level of engagement, access to research, and the capacity for sober evaluation on the part of multiple editors. This places higher expectations on editors here than elsewhere and there is no mechanism for making local rules/norms that I can see either. This scenario is also likely to encourage the participation of editors with a POV (but not necessarily COI) and discourage casual participants who may have something useful to offer. Thoughts? Jellypear (talk) 17:01, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I'll let others answer about the background to the Arbcom ruling, but I'll just add that in my view a claim/rebuttal pattern is not what we want in Wikipedia (see WP:ATM) - it is much better to have a good topic-based structure to an article, and then let the content emerge in a readble narrative with weight equivalent to the authority of the supporting sources. That is neutral, and it may come out badly or well for the subject of the article. Alexbrn (talk) 17:21, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Oh, very much agreed. A claim/rebuttal pattern would be endlessly boring. I was referring to when there is a specific disputed issue/passage/quotation, and within that section other pages inevitably have a "Person X says this" and "Person Y says that" pattern. Hopefully those points can be nicely embedded into some sort of neutral contextual framework provided by more-or-less disinterested third parties. But it is important that if there are two sides to a specific issue/passage/quotation they both get the chance to speak for themselves and make them. Once again, I think you handled Daar & Dugan quite well. But we can't deny that this was possible because you were willing to take an even-handed view, had access to resources that told you more about the publication Free Inquiry, and because Steiner's quote was freely available on the internet so you could source it directly. These are very high expectations placed on editors. Jellypear (talk) 17:51, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Dugan & Dar

I am seeking discussion on Daar and Dugan (1994). Free Inquiry is a magazine published by the Council for Secular Humanism. It has an editorial board but there is no peer review process for article submissions. In its statement of purpose, the magazine says that it aims "to promote and nurture the good life - life guided by reason and science, freed from the dogmas of god and state, inspired by compassion for fellow humans, and driven by the ideals of human freedom, happiness, and understanding. Free Inquiry is dedicated to seeing that one day all members of the human family thrive by embracing basic humanist principles," which they go on to enumerate. Authors are invited to submit manuscripts that "[explain] the principles of secular humanism and [support] those living out its ideals." Comments? Jellypear (talk) 19:28, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

According to this [7] and this [8] it is peer-reviewed; and if even it it weren't, it is cited in other reliable scholarly works – what's the issue? Alexbrn (talk) 19:55, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Ok. Go ahead and remove again my questionable source comment. I found Free Inquiry listed in Academic Search Premier as peer-reviewed as well. I wonder, however, who is making the designation for these things in the databases---the magazines or journals themselves? There is no central source that vets this kind of thing but being that it is listed as peer-reviewed in multiple databases, I will have to defer. I realize this is not an issue that can (or will be) resolved here but I am very surprised that this magazine would be classified as "peer reviewed" when there is no mechanism for a double-blind peer review process on their author submission page. In addition, the magazine's stated aims/purposes are clearly to advocate a position rather than simply presenting research on the topic of secular humanism. Jellypear (talk) 20:29, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Hah, well I just checked on ProQuest where it is listed as not "peer-reviewed" - so: take your pick! I think (and my day job involves me in academic journal production) that in the real world a lot of these things are rather more, err, "fuzzy" than we might ideally expect them to be (I remember tales of "peer review" being to accept every other article in the pile). Taken all-in-all, though, what we have here is probably the most reasonably-sourced way to represent the start of the "Dugan story" which is, I think, a notable part of Waldorf reception in the USA. Alexbrn (talk) 20:47, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I only had time to check Academic Search Premier yesterday. I had looked for Free Inquiry itself at two major university libraries and was only able to find it on the third try at Harvard, which is where I got all of the information about FI's notes to authors. Given the submission guidelines and the very clear purpose they indicate (ie., they would not be publishing a piece written from an anti-secular humanist stance), I was surprised to see it listed as "peer-reviewed" in the databases. In the absence of any centralized clearinghouse for for this issue, I suspect the databases are allowing self-reporting and using different criteria. Fuzzy indeed. As far as the genesis of the Dugan story, I think this may be one of the better sources to use. A media interview is another thing to consider. What I find problematic about FI is that what is actually being quoted in the wiki article is what Dugan says Steiner said, rather than what Dugan is saying about his own opinions. In other words, FI can be an excellent source for Dan Dugan's views on Waldorf education but a questionable source on Waldorf education itself. In addition, given the magazine's standpoint, it might even be considered a highly questionable source for neutral information on Rudolf Steiner.

Here, and elsewhere, I am concerned with how sources are presented. Clearly, this is not "a paper" in the same sense that Ullrich's work is "a paper." I'd like to see clear distinctions between academic research, overall commentary/evaluation from generally credible sources, commentary from people speaking in a promoting/detracting capacity and media accounts, which may include aspects of the foregoing. Thank you for discussing this here. This is exactly what I was hoping for in creating some kind of record of what editors think of the merits of different sources.Jellypear (talk) 17:22, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes - this is why I framed their piece as "strongly critical"; I think trying to characterize it much further risks neutrality. Dugan obviously picks the "it's a religion" Hannsson quote and the skeptics' favourite passage about "worming your way" -- he then goes on to found an anti-Waldorf campaign group that starts a legal action. I think WP is reporting this accurately and neutrally at the moment. I am sure readers will draw their own conclusions. Alexbrn (talk) 17:30, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I don' think framing it as "strongly critical" provides much information as to the type of source it is. That is a value judgement regarding the tone of the piece. Further---apart from any questions of possible bias---I have now checked through 50 Proquest databases and I am unable to even get a copy of this article. That's ridiculous! Why is this citation better than quoting his views from a journalistic account that can be accessed by the average reader? Jellypear (talk) 21:21, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't think availability is ever a factor. The article is available from libraries and/or online from Gale/Cengage, at least. And (cough) if you type the title into Google there may be some free copies floating around. The article is cited by other scholarly works and - it seems - peer-reviewed: it's a reliable source, in other words ... and we're not using it for super-heavy purposes, we're using it once, and more in the way of reporting what Daar/Dugan said as part of story of this Waldorf-and-religion question. If we start adding a critical commentary on the "quality" of the source (setting ourselves up above the academics that use it?) then I'm not sure that's neutral. The source seems fine to me for the purposes for which we're using it. Is this the only source in the entire article which concerns you? Alexbrn (talk) 21:52, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I am not trying to "add critical commentary on the quality of the source." Ulrich'sweb, the global serials directory, classifies Free Inquiry as a "consumer magazine" that "deals with the separation of Church and State and secular humanism....Articles on religion, ethics and moral thought from a secular humanist viewpoint" and "Free Inquiry is published as the mouthpiece of the Council for Secular Humanism." I think it is an acceptable source concerning what Dan Dugan (and presumably people with a secular humanist perspective) might think. Would another way around this to be to quote one of these works instead? cited by other scholarly works If the goal is to describe some of Dugan's views and then show how they led to his founding of an organization, there seem to be several paths to achieve this goal that don't have to make wide ranging use of a publication that explicitly states its goals as advancing secular humanism and does not appear to have a peer-review process. It seems to me that many citations in this wiki article have been scrutinized for far lesser reasons. Jellypear (talk) 22:45, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I have to say I am very disturbed by how difficult it is for me to get a copy of this article whilst having premier access to ProQuest, Academic Search Complete and perhaps not as many features as you have with Gale/Centage because I can't find it there either. So in a sense if the average person wanted to find this, the expectation is that they would find it through waldorfcritics. Isn't that a no-no? Also, after googling around I see that a response was published in Renewal, A Journal for Waldorf Education, which would indicate that some of what Daar & Dugan wrote was disputed (either rightly or wrongly). But that rebuttal cannot be added to the wiki article because it is considered self-published. So what I see is an argument being made in a publication with a clear POV, which did get disputed in a publication with an opposing POV but only one publication can stand. In this case, isn't it better to use a third party source? Jellypear (talk) 23:32, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

WP:SOURCEACCESS is clear, and "implies nothing about ease of access to sources: some online sources may require payment, while some print sources may only be available in university libraries." Also, when evaluating reliability, don't forget Daar, who has a formidable publication record. The article is at Gale with document number "GALE|A15349553", but it seems that system will only work if logged-in with full access. I haven't checked whether the free versions on the web are true equivalents to what was published.

Yes. I perhaps I haven't been clear on that. I am not making a WP:SOURCEACCESS point. It is sourceable by wiki standards. I was offering commentary about the apparent quality of this source given that the very large, renown library I use has not chosen to shelve this title and Proquest/EBSCO-Academic Search Complete/Web of Science etc., at this library doesn't have it in their on-line databases. In addition, Ulrichsweb (the global serials directory) classifies this as a "consumer magazine," and a librarian reviewer for them has referred to it as "the mouthpiece of the Council of Secular Humanism." Nor are there peer review guidelines listed in the FI instructions to authors, as well as the fact various databases have taken a different view in how to classify this as peer-reviewed. Even still, I have allowed that these issues should not necessarily preclude Free Inquiry from being used as a source. It is a credible source for information on the views of Judy Daar and Dan Dugan, which do have pertinence to the subject of this wiki article. The problem is that what is being quoted of their work is what they have said about others. Is this magazine a credible source for the views of Sven Hannsson and Rudolf Steiner? Given the stated aims of the magazine and the fact that, at best, a peer-review process is unclear FI ought not be considered by wiki editors to fall into the category of a "peer-reviewed" journal. A further level of review is necessary. And, again, provided that there were not controversial claims being made there may be no problem with using this source. However yesterday I come to find out that one of the things quoted here is under debate. The Renewal piece, which is forbidden here because the author is a Waldorf teacher (I think?), and it was published in Renewal (deemed self-published), says that the selected quote was transcribed from a private conversation and referred not to parents but how one ought to deal with government bureaucrats. Now, I have no idea which is correct. I haven't seen the source material myself and that's not necessary anyway. What we have is the content of two POV publications and they are in a dispute. There are many ways to address the problem. For example, the wiki article could avoid quoting the disputed parts of the article and stick to aspects for which there is no specific dispute. Or, the wiki article could use a third party source for Daar and Dugan's opinions. Among the unacceptable solutions are choosing to treat this as "peer reviewed" and reliable concerning disputed issues. For this purpose, the source is not good. Jellypear (talk) 14:16, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Let's get to resolution on this. WP:SCHOLARSHIP says "Care should be taken with journals that exist mainly to promote a particular point of view. A claim of peer review is not an indication that the journal is respected, or that any meaningful peer review occurs. Journals that are not peer reviewed by the wider academic community should not be considered reliable, except to show the views of the groups represented by those journals" and regarding quotations "partisan secondary sources should be viewed with suspicion as they may misquote or quote out of context. In such cases, look for neutral corroboration from another source." Jellypear (talk) 17:13, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

[Update]The article is available from HighBeam too (they also classify this serial as "peer-reviewed"). Alexbrn (talk) 07:29, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Okay, let me try and sum up where we are and where we I think we should be going on this.

First, purely in the interests of transparency, I will ask you User:Jellypear if you have any connection with Waldorf education. As you will appreciate, the section we are discussing is the white-hot heart of the sun as far as conflict of interest goes for this article.

This is why I am here---I use wikipedia a lot as a quick source for subjects that are new to me. I realize its limitations, but it's generally great for a quick snapshot and citations for future research. I was visiting this page about a year + ago and found it very useful for that purpose. This fall I noticed that the page had changed drastically and then I started reading the TALK page. I decided to participate because I have no WP:COI to declare but do have subject matter knowledge to contribute to this alternative education series. I'd rather not participate to tell you the truth - it's already been very time consuming! But one thing I do not like is summaries of studies I am familiar with that violate WP:Weight norms. In the sections I have reviewed thus far (literacy, ICT, science) there has been little attempt to accurately describe the various points that the authors themselves made. As for this white-hot section, I am not party to this secular humanist/spiritual science debate. It's one of the less interesting areas of this page to me. I do think that there is some hypocrisy going on here with regard to designation of reliable sources and after searching in vain for the Free Inquiry publication I became incredulous. This shouldn't have been so difficult to argue and I think that is rather concerning. Anyway, that's it - other than to say that I also have never met or spoken to any of the other editors here in my life and am certainly not anyone's sock puppet.Jellypear (talk) 20:48, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

We are agreed I think that the source is biased, but has a certain weight even in the face of its uncertain peer-review mechanisms. Its purpose here is to source the view of the skeptical faction in the USA claiming Waldorf education is religious.
I have posted a query on RSN here.

Good.Jellypear (talk) 20:48, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Being a newbie, I don't know where this concern goes...Alexbrn, maybe you can post this in your query if that is where it goes? The issue: In a less disputed wiki article/section, the obvious solution to this quandry would be to present Daar and Dugan's viewpoints and then the rebuttal/response that was published...somehow acknowledging that both sources are credible for demonstrating the contrasting perspectives and both may be biased in their own way. Yet in the case of this wiki page, the whole category of publications written and published from Waldorf/Waldorf-related sources is being excised. So, what do you do? WP:SCHOLARSHIP suggested to me that you go with a third-party source but maybe something else is better? Thanks. Jellypear (talk) 22:58, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Anything from a Waldorf/antroposophic source is considered unreliable. However, in this case - exceptionally - the consensus was to include a statement issued by the Waldorf movement on this issue (in fact there are two, which might not be necessary). Alexbrn (talk) 14:27, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

"the consensus was to include a statement issued by the Waldorf movement on this issue" ? I am not following. Are you referring to the select instances in this wiki article that something is asserted and then it is followed by "Waldorf has issued a statement saying that XYZ?" or that there has been some feedback to your query. (BTW: The most recent edit is a prudent handling of the issue. Thank you for listening to my concerns.) Jellypear (talk) 15:38, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

If you check back here you'll see hgilbert+EPAdmirateur proposed to include the Waldorf statement, and there was no sustained opposition (so, consensus). The RS noticeboard is really (strictly speaking) only for asking if a source if reliable or not in respect of some content. If you have a more general query about the use of Waldorf sources, somebody better placed than I can answer you, as that decision has its roots in events from several years ago. Alexbrn (talk) 16:16, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

There is no question over the Sven Ove Hansson quotation; this may be equally well sourced directly from the original piece by him.
The "worm your way" quotation is more difficult, since it's trickier to quote directly from Steiner in this article. Reading the context of what Steiner reportedly said, I personally am satisfied D&D do not misrepresent him when they write that he produced these words "in 1920, while trying to obtain state approval for his school"; they then go on to claim this exemplified a plan of "systematically concealing the objectives of the schools ... " – that claim is of course their POV interpretation, which we should be neutrally and accurately reporting. Steiner's original words were:
Man muß sich durchschlängeln; man muß sich bewußt sein, daß dies doch im Leben - nicht von innen veranlaßt, dann wäre es jesuitisch -, aber daß es von außen mit einer gewissen Reservatio mentalis gemacht wird. Man muß sich bewußt sein, nicht von innen her, von außen her, daß man nötig hat, um wenigstens das zu machen, was wir durchbringen wollen, mit den Leuten zu reden, und ihnen innerlich eine Nase zu drehen.
and the (clunky) English translation here has this as
Somehow we need to feel our way through this. We need to be aware that such things happen in life, but we should realize that they do not arise inwardly—that would be deceptive—but from without, and that we should do them with a certain mental reservation. We should be aware that we need to do things, but not inwardly, to achieve at least the minimum of what we want, and that we will need to speak with people while inwardly tweaking their noses.
We can either stick with D&D's wording (satisfied between us of its use), or we could directly quote Steiner here. I know Steiner is to be considered a dangerous WP:PRIMARY, but in this case it would be used in the interest of validating our secondary source, rather than advancing an original position. I judge that to be a reasonable use.

Me too. In fact I think it's preferable in this case.Jellypear (talk) 20:48, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I think the question of mistranscription of Steiner's comments is a red-herring, and we shouldn't be distracted by it without good (sourced) reason.

That is fine. I was just mentioning what the other POV publication asserted to demonstrate that this was in dispute.Jellypear (talk) 20:48, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Finally, it became apparent during my reading over the weekend that there is a rather greater range of opinion over Waldorf and religion than this section currently allows, so it will need to be expanded in any event. Alexbrn (talk) 19:35, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

This discussion on Daar and Dugan (1994) probably should be in its own section and I apologize for not doing that to begin with. I would like to cut and paste it into its own section so that general discussion of self-published sources can have a section of its own. Anyone opposed for some reason? I'll hold off on doing this myself for at least a day, but if anyone else feels it is fine to do this, please go ahead. Given how lengthy this section has gotten, in the future I would suggest that it's better to make a new section for each source. Jellypear (talk) 13:52, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Made a sub-section. Alexbrn (talk) 14:20, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Woods et al. (2005)

This is a research report copyrighted by the Centre for Research in Education and Democracy, Faculty of Education, University of the West of England and it is produced and distributed by the UK Government Department of Education and Skills. It has an ISBN number (ISBN 1 84478 495 9). I would classify this as a government document and therefore a reliable source for information on education in the UK. User:hgilbert says it used to be cited in the wiki article but no more. Does someone else have a different read on this potential source? If so, comment here. Thanks. Jellypear (talk) 20:36, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

It's used at Studies of Waldorf education; there's some previous discussion here that suggests it wasn't/isn't being used very. Alexbrn (talk) 21:08, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Pedagogy section: request for comment

I'd like to invite comments on how the pedagogy section should best be structured. I personally would prefer to see an overview of the internal structure of the education come first, and the philosophical basis for this follow. (This is how the article was structured until recently.) What do others feel about this? hgilbert (talk) 23:07, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the structure should come first (what is the pedagogy) and then the basis (where do these ideas come from). Right now the section starts out with

Anthroposophic educationalists assert, according to Ullrich, that 'all the norms and forms of their educational practice are systematically deduced from the cosmic anthropology of the master.' Anthroposophy underpins the school organisation, curriculum and pedagogy (and frequently, the design of the school buildings, as well as pupil and teacher health and diet). Oppenheimer writes that at one Californian teacher training center (at which students are expected to have undergraduate degrees), virtually every text used was written by Steiner or another anthroposophist.

which basically says nothing about what the pedagogy is about. That appears only much later, after sub-sections about Spirituality and the Four Temperaments. It's confusing to readers and unencyclopedic. It also gives a very distorted view of what Waldorf education is about. --EPadmirateur (talk) 01:35, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

It's COI/NPOV to edit from some preconceived notion "of what Waldorf education is about" which must not be "distorted". It makes perfect sense to explain something starting with its basis and then proceeding to refinements and instances of things deriving from that "basis", otherwise when a reader gets to the wording "The structure of the education follows Steiner's ideas about child development", they won't be fully in the picture.

I'll be very plain. My concern is that there is a push here to "bury" what is perceived as "negative" material about Waldorf, but moving it later in the article, at the expense of any common sense notion of good article structure. It is especially worrying when the edit is being pushed by a COI-tainted editor (against WP guidelines, as I have repeatedly pointed out) and another editor who has a record of assisting his edits, even in contravention of WP policy. What further concerns me is that it is documented that Waldorf teachers are sometimes instructed to hide/downplay anthroposophy, and so I suspect that this push is an instance of that tactic. EPadmirateur — do you have a conflict of interest to declare? Alexbrn (talk) 11:43, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

We're talking about restructuring the article for clarity. That's all. In an article on WE, it makes sense to describe the education before describing the philosophy out of which it was born. There are links to that philosophy right in the lede, and the subsection on the anthroposophical basis can remain, but in an appropriate location.

In an article on science, one would hardly expect to begin with an extensive discussion of its epistemological basis. Philosophers might be fascinated, but the normal reader would be expecting to read about science, not epistemology. So here, as well. hgilbert (talk) 11:50, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't agree, and I don't trust the impulse behind the suggestion. Look at the Montessori article: theory before practice. That's basic. (Off topic) might I suggest to you that your thought processes are affected by your closeness to anthroposophy where, in contrast, ideas are derived from the specific (occult revelation) and then generalised into theory. Alexbrn (talk) 12:02, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Montessori's ideas generally aren't treated in that article, but rather those that are directly pedagogical. This is what the Structure subsection does here; it looks at the theoretical underpinnings of Waldorf education. These have nothing to do with any occult revelation, but are very similar to Piaget's ideas about child development.

Perhaps your impressions about Waldorf education have been formed without any contact with it? I am puzzled why you have such clear opinions about it. hgilbert (talk) 19:47, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

(Off topic) Well, since you're sort of needling me for some personal information, and since I've asked EPadmirateur for a COI declaration, I suppose it's only fair I give it you.

For the record, I have no connection with Waldorf-Steiner education, anthroposophic organizations, or any organization that has counter interests, or which has even expressed any views on Waldorf education, Steiner, anthroposophy, or related topics. My knowledge of Waldorf education (such as it is) comes from having had one child educated in that system for a number of years, with fair success (another child was educated in "conventional" education). This gives me some experience of both "sides". As for all educational systems it has - in my view - good points and bad points. I do not consider myself a pro-Waldorfian, and I do not identify with the shrill and intolerant anti-Waldorfian skeptics, well-established in the US and growing in the UK. The problem, as I see it, with Waldorf education is that it's 80% reasonable and 20% bollocks - almost entirely as a result of some of the batshit-crazy ideas that Rudolf Steiner had; however, as gurus go, I consider RS to have been one of the better ones, with interesting ideas, integrity and a pro-humanity outlook. If only Waldorf education could cut the RS knot, though ... especially for hard science ...

My problems with the article come from (as a parent, or general reader) not seeing basic informative stuff I thought should be there, especially about the controversies. It's not a question of POV, it's a question of: does this article cover the things one would expect it to? The answer was, emphatically, no.

My issue about COI is that when I first started editing Wikipedia it was on a subject I was closely connected with. I had a COI. Of course, I didn't see it, I believed I was neutral, and I edited the articles anyway. I know very well what it's like to have a COI and I can see very well how it works having "been there". Alexbrn (talk) 22:16, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for sharing honestly. I did not mean to be fishing for personal information, but it does help to understand your perspective.

Incidentally, I agree with you totally about ensuring that the science curriculum is up to date, and that it should not incorporate ideas whose only support is that they stem from the founder of the Waldorf approach. hgilbert (talk) 00:09, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Two editors feel that the old structure is better. One feels that the new one, which is his work, is better. No one else has weighed in on this. It seems that we should return to the old structure. Any reason not to? hgilbert (talk) 11:59, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

There is no consensus to change, and Wikipedia does not operate by "vote". I object to any such change being made. Alexbrn (talk) 12:59, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

There are two editors who see the current structure as misleading and unacceptable. Do you have a proposal that will establish a consensus here?

My vision of consensus: you wished to add new content and rework the structure. We are accepting the new content but wish to preserve a structure that is far clearer to the reader. That sounds like a reasonable compromise. hgilbert (talk) 13:41, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

There is one editor (me) who wishes to preserve the article as-is, and objects to the change, backed-up by argument and example; there is another (you) who has no weight in the debate, since you have a COI and a history of POV-pushing, and are participating here against the recommendations of WP:COIBEST and WP:COIU; there is another editor who has a history of being recruited by you to assist in POV-pushing, and who has offered nothing recent in this "debate". Consensus is defined as a lack of sustained opposition by a significant portion of stakeholders. Alexbrn (talk) 13:58, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

"As is" -- meaning according to your last edit.

You are also involved in Waldorf education, by your own admission. Let's try to find a mutually acceptable solution. hgilbert (talk) 13:48, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

In the case of dispute, the status quo rules.

I have not "admitted" I am "involved in" Waldorf education. That is an outright lie.

The "solution" for this is for you - and any other COI-tainted editors - to follow WP guidelines and withdraw from editing this article in a POV-pushing manner. Alexbrn (talk) 14:33, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

It was out-of-bounds for Hgilbert to say that Alexbrn is "involved" with Waldorf. That is ridiculous.

Regarding the pedagogy section, I find it reasonable to present the material in the following order:

2 Pedagogy and ideas of child development

2.1 Anthroposophical basis

2.1.1 Spirituality

2.1.2 Four temperaments

2.2 Structure

2.3 Looping

2.4 Pre-school and kindergarten: birth to age 6 or 7

2.5 Elementary education: age 6/7 to 14

2.6 Secondary education

This arrangement first tells the reader the basis for what is taught; it follows the chronological basis for WE in that the theories came before the practice. It makes sense. Binksternet (talk) 16:46, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the outline. Unfortunately the result of this order is unencyclopedic, if you consider what each section says. I also have to say it is POV-pushing. To summarize the contents of each section:

2 Pedagogy and ideas of child development

2.1 Anthroposophical basis: Everything in Waldorf education is based on the weird ideas of "the master". Teachers study only these weird ideas. The weird ideas include: the innate spirit coming from the ocean of God; karma; reincarnation; the human being as physical body, etheric body (taught in middle school), astral body (taught in adolescence) and Ego; teachers helping each child's soul and spirit grow. These weird ideas are explicitly not part of the Waldorf curriculum but parents feel they are being deceived about the true secret basis of Waldorf education, because Anthroposophy and Waldorf are really cults and the teachers really do teach the weird ideas in a hidden form because they don't want to push them onto the students.

2.1.1 Spirituality: Waldorf education is infused with spirituality (another weird idea), including a wide range of religious traditions, depending on what culture the school is in, including celebrating the festivals of the particular spiritual heritage.

2.1.2 Four temperaments: Waldorf teachers categorize their pupils' character and behavior according to the weird ancient Greek ideas of melancholic, sanguine, phlegmatic and choleric which determine their behavior. The temperaments must be balanced (because one-sidedness of temperaments limits the student) by more weird ideas like avoiding eggs and pastry.

2.2 Structure: here we finally get some idea of what the pedagogical theory is: children are regarded as threefold beings (spirit, soul and body), who unfold in three developmental stages of seven years, each with its own requirements and sub-stages, something like Piaget. Early childhood is addressed through imitation, elementary through imagination and art, and secondary through intellectual understanding and ethical ideals. Emphasis on festivals and ceremonies (oh, that's why they try to work within the students' spiritual heritage). From the same heritage as Comenius et al., involving imagination (already mentioned) and collaborative reasoning.

2.3 Looping: the main teacher stays with the elementary class for a number of years which has advantages and disadvantages (weird idea).

2.4 Pre-school and kindergarten: birth to age 6 or 7: more detail about the early childhood (imitation) stage. Free play, outdoor play, oral language. Waldorf dolls yes, but no media (harmful -- weird idea), natural materials (weird idea because they still allow manufactured items as well). Daily, weekly and annual rhythms, including seasonal festivals drawn from a variety of traditions, especially those of the community.

2.5 Elementary education: age 6/7 to 14: more detail of elementary (imagination and the arts) stage. Concepts through stories and images, integrated with the visual and plastic arts, music and movement. Few standardized textbooks (weird idea), main lesson focus (weird idea), other subjects. Looping again. Individual variations in the pace of learning; cooperation, not competition (weird idea).

2.6 Secondary education: more detail on secondary (intellectual) stage. Specialist teachers, academic subjects plus art, music, etc. Independent and creative thinking processes. Ethical principles, a sense of social responsibility.

The reason the current structure is unencyclopedic is that it does not even address WHAT Waldorf education is until the Structure section. If the objective is to present Waldorf pedagogy, then we need to say what the pedagogy is before getting into enumerating what's weird about it or where the weirdness comes from.

Furthermore, in the current form, this section says "Waldorf education is WEIRD, WEIRD, WEIRD; oh by the way it has a structure and a rationale". This is not a neutral presentation but clearly POV. Furthermore, the emphasis on the weirdness in the first 3 sections is totally WP:UNDUE. --EPadmirateur (talk) 05:49, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Your complaint of a chronological layout being "unencyclopedic" is without basis. The chronological presentation is widely used in encyclopedia articles.

You appear to be looking for a particular conclusion, that WE is not weird. Science looks at the evidence and only then makes a conclusion. I think we should make a scientific presentation to the reader. If the reader concludes that WE is weird, so be it. If you are here to push the conclusion away from the evidence which formed it then you are pushing a point of view. Binksternet (talk) 11:21, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

It is normal to present the content before the critique. I agree with EPadmirateur that the current structure clearly has this backwards. hgilbert (talk) 13:30, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the current structure is, for lack of a better term, wack. I'd like to see things turned around in the opposite order but I think its possible to defer to User:Alexbrn and his concerns about burying the anthroposophy at the end. User:Alexbrn recommended the flow on the Montessori page. That's reasonable. Here are the sections that directly apply to this page.

HISTORY

MONTESSORI EDUCATIONAL THEORY

(subsections concerning the theory's components)

MONTESSORI PRACTICES

This is what we've got.

WALDORF HISTORY - We're more or less fine here both in terms of placement and the sort of information presented.

WALDORF EDUCATIONAL THEORY ???

Anthroposophical basis - Its based on Anthroposophy. Teachers study it. The ideas are basically sound, but some people fear indoctrination of their children.

Spirituality - These schools have spirituality to them.

The Four Temperaments - Unlike other schools, teachers want to classify your kid into one of the four temperaments

then, the page switches into what on the Montessori page would be called "Practices" but with us there is no designation that we've moved from theory to everyday practices

WALDORF EDUCATIONAL PRACTICES

Structure

Looping

Developmental divisions X 3

Does anyone notice anything? There isn't a place where "Waldorf Educational Theory" is explained! It is a mish-mosh of subtopics hung together and then the reader is supposed to make something out of it. What use is that? Whatever order any of this is in, and whatever relative weight any of these subtopics ought to receive, they must still exist within a framework that actually tries to explain something called "Waldorf Educational Theory." How one thoroughly explains that must drive which issues get a subtopic heading. Here are five suggestions. 1) Move the discussion of the anthroposophical basis to the history section; or 2) Leave the anthroposophical section if some people feel calling the word out is important, but write the section for the purposes of showing the connection between Steiner's vision of the human being and what that meant for his vision of education and perhaps drop all of this business of possible indoctrination, architecture and nutrition, etc. That is practice and criticism which could come later, if need be. Something along the lines of what Ullrich does in his paper or Giesenberg is what I am thinking, yet synthesized across multiple sources. But again, the page must explain and not just dangle a bunch of quotes and hope for the best; 4) If the "Spirituality" and "Four Temperaments" are kept in their own separate subtopic, they should be moved under practices, because that is what they are; and 5) I came across the following list today in Oberski et al. (2007). I thought this was a great straightforward listing of the features of Waldorf education. Maybe there should be more, or something should be said differently, but it's a good start. Perhaps this list could help inform the structure in the same way that the Montessori page has a very clear explanation of the components of her educational theory? Here is the list

Formal teaching starts at 6 - 7 years old

Writing is taught before reading

Looping

Modern foreign languages from 6 - 7 years old

Vocational and creative activities have equal status

Creative activities infused throughout the curriculum

Development of imaginative abilities

Main-lesson structure

little formal assessment before 12 -12 year old

Non-denominational yet underpinned by spiritual values, with schools in non-Christian societies

I think it will be impossible to write towards explanation unless editors can agree with an overall structure. Right now this page looks like an edited volume written on post-it notes by Twelve Angry Men :) Jellypear (talk) 22:49, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Splitting the current section 2 into fuller "theory" and "practice" subsections sounds likes a good idea, and the Oberski scheme for the practice sub-subsections looks workable (better than the current 3-stage approach, which is tricky to allocate stuff to). I can foresee a couple of potential problems. First is the distinction between theory and practice (the "four temperaments" is the latter? ... really?). Secondly a lot of the Waldorf theory seems to be anthroposophy's view of human development -- and that content might more properly live in the Anthroposophy article, rather than here. Still I agree the current section 2 could stand a lot of improvement. WP:SOFIXIT :-) Alexbrn (talk) 16:42, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Bloody hell. Did I tell you that I need to be at the gym??! I will put together an outline. Jellypear (talk) 19:21, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Jelinek and Sun (2003)

I went back to look at the Jelinek and Sun (2003) article to evaluate the following summation. "A 2003 study of science education in United States Steiner schools found a number of pseudoscientific ideas being taught...." Yet if you look at the article, the study does not actually measure what pseudoscientific concepts the students have been taught. The authors explicitly say "We avoided assessing specific conceptual knowledge of students as it could be argued that a fair comparison could only be made under controlled circumstances in which all groups received instruction on the same content..." In addition, a careful review of the grade-by-grade curriculum presented in the article does not show these questionable notions in the learning objectives. Rather the main criticism in the article revolves around teacher source materials that contain concepts that cannot be evaluated empirically and that these therefore could be taught to students if teacher training is not improved, particularly through an emphasis on the 5 "big ideas" and by better identifying which Waldorf source materials are good and which are not. (The authors offer both criticisms and recommendations of Waldorf science materials.)

I am placing this issue in Talk because I wonder if a more accurate summation of this article is to say concerns have been raised about teacher training and some (but not all) source materials may lead to students being exposed to pseudoscientific concepts. However, this study did not actually measure students' conceptual mastery nor did it identify how the curriculum supports learning pseudoscientific ideas. I encourage editors to give this article another look to assess whether it actually says what this wiki article contends. Without a doubt, Jelinek and Sun (2003) deserves to be in this wiki article. The question is in what capacity. Jellypear (talk) 21:08, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

The article is a good source for describing pseudoscience in the W-S curriculum, since that is what it plainly describes; and concerns around pseudoscience form a major strand of the article's conclusion too. We're not claiming "all source materials" are pseudoscience, nor are we discussing "conceptual mastery" - however it may well be that this source (as with most sources) could be further mined for additional material. Alexbrn (talk) 22:39, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

But the wiki article sentence says "A study...found a number of pseudoscientific ideas being taught..." That is not the conclusion the authors draw because they A) didn't measure students' conceptual knowledge (of any sort) and B) they did not identify the pseudoscientific concepts noted on the wiki list in their content analysis of the curriculum. They recognized they had no data to make broad claims about what was being taught in Waldorf education (beyond the findings of their content analysis) and therefore didn't make them. For example, criticism involving Atlantis is entirely limited to Kolisko's (1945) work. The criticism isn't that students are being taught about Atlantis (as the wiki article currently states), but that the curriculum does not contain enough current content on plate tectonics. In sum, I agree that Jelinek & Sun (2003) is a good source for discussing the issue of pseudoscience in Waldorf education. It may even be the very best source. However, the introductory sentence makes claims about findings that the authors themselves do not make. I am inclined to rewrite this to better accord with the actual conclusions of the authors. However, I am happy to discuss it further before I do. Jellypear (talk) 15:25, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

If the article said "a study found students learned the following pseudoscientific ideas", then you might have a point. But since we don't know what students learned, only what was in the curriculum Jelinek and Sun had reviewed by their panel, and what Jelinek and Sun say about that review (Lyons does however say these ideas are taught). Jelinek and Sun explicitly say there is pseudoscience in the curriculum:

It would also be a good idea to identify Waldorf curriculum materials with prevailing inaccuracies and pseudoscientific explanations and remove them from consideration. Unfortunately, this probably means that the majority of Waldorf science curriculum materials are subject to removal or at the very least, extensive refinement. Wilkinson’s Waldorf Curriculum Series (Wilkinson, 1975,1978,1982), for example, is so filled with pseudoscientific explanations (e.g., “Before the world came into being materially…there was a ‘watery’ state; before that an ‘airy-gaseous’; and before that something akin to ‘warmth’…. Into the original ‘warmth’ element the gods poured something of their own substance, thus forming the basis of what later became the human physical body”) that it would really be best to disregard the booklets altogether. (etc etc etc)

surely what's in the curriculum is being taught? However, to make this all clear I have unpacked the wording a bit and made it tighter to the source - see what you think. Alexbrn (talk) 16:11, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

I do like this better because it is closer to the source. I am also glad to see we are agreed on this point: "we don't know what students learned, only what was in the curriculum Jelinek and Sun had reviewed by their panel." The remaining concern I have is the difference between "the curriculum" and what they refer to as "Waldorf curriculum materials" for teacher preparation. Obviously, the students themselves are not reading Wilkinson (1975) or Kolisko (1945) directly so there is a clear difference between "Waldorf curriculum materials" for teacher preparation and "the curriculum," which as we know is likely to be highly localized and idiosyncratic in Waldorf education. Yet even with that being the case, they failed to identify any of the pseudoscientific concepts referenced on page 60 in the learning objectives, topic areas, or science kits/demo lessons---ie,, the "curriculum" Jelinek & Sun defined in the appendix. Where they did find the pseudoscientific ideas is in the "Waldorf curriculum materials" for teacher preparation. These are a rather definable body of documents and source materials that have either been used in the past, are considered acceptable for use, or are widely used today. Again in my reading of this paper, this is their primary concern---that there are "Waldorf curriculum materials" for teacher preparation that contain both outdated concepts and those that they classify as pseudoscientific. This is a very clear criticism and one which they prove quite well. I realize this may seem like nitpicking. However, this issue of pseudoscience will continue to be a hot button issue on this wiki page. Therefore it is imperative that this wiki article is precise concerning the nature of the criticism offered by Jelinek & Sun. They argue that by failing to recognize the limitations of certain offending texts, Waldorf science education will be hamstrung to move forward with the "less is more" delivery model they think is possible (see page 61). In sum, more nuance is still needed in this section to get across the idea that certain (canonical?) texts are the root cause of the most important limitations they identified. One can focus on the fact that some of these notions are pseudoscience but in many ways doing so does great injustice to the complex issues Jelinek & Sun raise. I'm going to try to see if I can better tease this out, but simply inserting something like "Waldorf curriculum materials for teacher preparation" instead of just "curriculum materials" or "the curriculum" might go a long way. Jellypear (talk) 05:47, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

No, it's good to be picky; I have picked at the text accordingly. What do you make of Østergaard et al's comment on the Jelinek/Sun piece, that it shows "on the negative side, the science curriculum for Waldorf schools was considered somewhat old-fashioned and out of date, as well as including some doubtful scientific material". Normally, since this is notionally a superior source (peer-reviewed), we'd take its word. Do you know any more about this?

I think both sources are quality sources. Obviously it's less desirable to quote Ostergaard et al (2008) on Jelinek and Sun (2003) than just quoting the actual study in the first place. Moreover, the sentence you mention is at the end of a paragraph where there is a lot of "on one hand this" but "on the other hand this." Its a quick summary where they appear to want to cover a lot of ground quickly and fairly. Jellypear (talk) 19:09, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree there is more to Jelinek/Sun that pseudoscience, and the piece is also mentioned in the Science section. Do you have any thoughts on its use there? Alexbrn (talk) 06:29, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes. The science section actually needs to explain what the phenomenological approach to science is. In general, this wiki article has way too much summary commentary in soundbite form and way too little actual explanation of what anything is. An advisable format would be to arrive at some informative and neutral description of the subtopic and then offer the reader whatever commentary or evaluation has been offered via credible peer-reviewed sources afterward. I don't have time to do this myself right now.Jellypear (talk) 19:09, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Would it be a justified summary to say that Østergaard et al's comment (1) is theoretically quotable due to its sourcing in a peer reviewed work, but (2) appears to be a clear case of jumping to conclusions not present in the material they are referencing? With the best will in the world, I can't see why we would choose to include something that we all agree appears to mistake its own sources. hgilbert (talk) 11:01, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Well re-reading Jelinek and Sun I think if indeed they intended to keep a clear distinction between "curriculum materials" and "curriculum" then they made a bit of a mess of it, since these two concepts seem to be frequently elided (perhaps, as one might expect, in reality they are). Østergaard et al seem to agree with my initial reading, and theirs is a fairly influential article. If in doubt, should verifiability trump (supposed) truth? Alexbrn (talk) 13:23, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I think it's fair to say that they did make a bit of a mess of making that distinction. OTOH, any knowledgeable reader concerning Waldorf education understands that in this subject matter, as well as all others, the teacher has considerable discretion in determining what is presented to students. So, there is the structure and sequence of topics (which doesn't vary too much from school to school - this is the appendix), the published science toolkits, lesson plans and suggested experiments and there are also texts written for adults that presumably help inform the choices the individual teacher will make. It's this latter area where they found the troublesome material and they were very clear about this. If this wiki page is truly looking to be neutral and informative, this is critical information for readers to understand in order to reconcile high performance on scientific reasoning tasks, earlier knowledge of some "advanced" science topics and concerns about pseudoscience. Since this is an encyclopedia entry, it falls to the editors to figure out how to present this in a way that the reader can reach their own conclusions. Jellypear (talk) 19:09, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

In light of recent edits to the pseudoscience section, here is my take on the facts in the Jelinek & Sun (2003) paper. There is no evidence that any of the educational reviewers evaluated anything related to Atlantis/Lemuria. There was evaluation of material apparently in the 4th grade curriculum (zoology) that the evaluators commented on, and apparently rated poorly, which may have involved comparing human beings and animals in some way. The biologists and the university professor especially did not like this and felt that it was an inappropriate mixing of philosophy or worldview with scientific fact. It doesn't seem as though the "by-product of humans" idea was in the curriculum or they probably would have stronger words and may have used the word "pseudoscience," which they did not. There were also several comments about anthropomorphizing animals in the lower grades. The teachers seemed to give a pass to a tendency toward anthropomorphizing animals, finding it developmental, and the biologist and university instructor didn't like it but again didn't call it "pseudoscience." Finally, the notion of the 4 kingdoms of nature did appear in the content. This was not referred to as "pseudoscience," but one reviewer questioned whether that could be considered scientific content. Overall, the non-teachers were the reviewers who expressed the most unease about mixing philosophical issues with scientific ones but appeared to stop short of calling anything pseudoscience. So, to tally up.

Atlantis/Lemuria - Not reviewed.
Animals by-product of humans - Not reviewed. But low evaluation of and questions raised regarding anthropomorphizing animals generally (in the lower grades) and particularly in the 4th grade unit on zoology.
4 Kingdoms of Nature - Evidence it's in the curriculum materials. None of the reviewers referred to this as pseudoscience but several felt that it was not a scientific concept and that it was philosophy or worldview unique to this setting. Didn't like it being in a science block.

I'm not striking anything in this section but I do think the presentation of this source could be improved to better reflect the source material. Jellypear (talk) 23:30, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Studies section

I have just noticed that the whole studies section (visible here) was deleted. This is the most objective material on Waldorf we have; what was the reason to remove it? hgilbert (talk) 21:28, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Not deleted, moved to become Studies of Waldorf education We now have the main article and three subs (History of ... / Curriculum of ... / Studies of ... ) Alexbrn (talk) 21:39, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

We should start integrating the most significant of their conclusions into the main article, then, so as not to lose this. hgilbert (talk) 21:16, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

The most significant report (from Woods/Ashley/Woods) was that this area lacks rigorous research and any kind of systematic meta-analysis. So far as I can see nearly all of these studies have been cherry-picked as they are presented, and the new sub article needs some serious work to ensure it's COI free. Alexbrn (talk) 21:56, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Sorry? Why should popular editorial comment be (overly) represented yet academic studies be (completely) ignored? If you feel that the studies are not well-represented, don't remove them, improve their representation. When I have time I will begin to add this high quality material to the article which is now to a significant extent relying on poor quality sources (editorials etc.) hgilbert (talk) 01:36, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Science section

Has this also disappeared without due notice? hgilbert (talk) 03:10, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree. There are active editors here. I'm not aware of any specific wiki rules on this but it is rather impolite to remove entire sections without any discussion at all. There may be a difference of opinion that merits at least soliciting what it may be before going ahead and removing a section. That being said, I think eventually that the science section and the pseudoscience section would have merged. So, now that this has been done and, I think, pseudoscience has been moved to a more appropriate section (under "reception") this is how I would approach it. Use the WALDORF EDUCATIONAL THEORY and WALDORF PRACTICES section to explain what science at a Waldorf school is. In reference to my earlier comment about there actually being no explanation on this page of either---and only scant mention of various practices (apparently through using the 12 Angry Men with post-its method)---there needs to be a new description of the science curriculum in the theory area and perhaps again in the practices area. I would expect that the text should discuss the goethean foundation, the phenomenological approach, how it is integrated with other subjects, the timing of various topics, and evidence of student learning/performance, such that it is. The criticisms of Waldorf science education could either be here or could go into the pseudoscience section --TBD. Do other editors agree? Anything else? I could try to tackle this, but it is a big job---especially given the limited sources and the fact that no agreements or discussion has occurred regarding the structure of the pedagogical section. So, I am not going to do it unless I can get a sense that there will be no issues with the proposed content and the proposed sources. How I write it up, as in whether it is WP:NPOV and such, would of course be up for discussion. This will take a lot of time and I have limited knowledge about this subject. I am not a Waldorf teacher; what I know comes through what others' have written about it. But it needs to be done. I just need some reassurance that if I go ahead and do this it is personally a better use of my time than dealing with the fact that the holiday season has made me jolly fat. Jellypear (talk) 16:24, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

This content is at Waldorf curriculum#Nature_and_science, where it should properly be. I have a query on Curriculum though. Since the schools are meant to be independently devising their own curricula, how can we specify what "the" curriculum is? Alexbrn (talk) 16:33, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Overall, I think this is fine but there still needs to be a science section for three reasons. 1) The approach is rather unique to Waldorf schools and ought to be explained in this wiki article rather than assuming the reader will link. I just noticed and read those links for the first time myself yesterday - and I have visited this page several times before. 2) Describing this topic also gives the reader a sense of the values inherent in the overall pedagogy in a way that a section on geography, for example, might not. 3) There is a pseudoscience section. So, as to avoid WP:UNDUE both science and pseudoscience ought to be directly named and discussed. Jellypear (talk) 18:46, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, your 1 & 2 are based on assumptions that reader's don't know how to use Wikipedia. The information is there, in the appropriate place which they can navigate to or find by search as they wish. As to (3) ... this is an discussion that was had before. I don't believe the fact that science exists in the curriculum should be used to "counter-balance" the reception controversy over pseudoscience. There's a place on Wikipedia for describing reception controversy w.r.t. Waldorf, and there's a different place for describing the curriculum content. The content should go where it belongs according to that structure. Alexbrn (talk) 18:57, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Oh, dear. As for issue 1) Well then why was there all of the fuss about the Lemuria image? There is an entire wiki page for Lemuria but it was felt by some editors that linking to it was not good enough that it was highly pertinent to include an image that has nothing to do with Rudolf Steiner, and even less to do with Waldorf Education? More information on anything is just a link away. WP:PERTINENCE and WP:UNDUE provide some clear guidelines as to how you make decisions that result in achieving the primary goal of informing the reader about the main topic while also including lesser issues in appropriate proportion. As for issue 2) I agree that describing all content areas would be a bad idea. However, there are a few academic subjects that can serve dual functions --- describing themselves as well as illustrating other larger principles being discussed---such as how experiential learning is approached in this form of education. Moreover, we cannot forget that the primary purpose of this page is to explain Waldorf education and a reasonable assumption is that when people visit the page they are interested in reading about how core academic subjects such as language arts, mathematics, and science are taught. So in regards to 3) I am not making any sort of "counter balance" argument. The two topics are fundamentally unequal to begin with. This is a page about a school system. Science is a subject that is taught in all schools. It is a fundamental and important topic for explaining this and any other educational system. The concern that Waldorf science is pseudoscience is a reception controversy. It belongs on the page but it is does not carry the same importance as topics which serve to explain the features of this education according to basic categories one would reasonably expect to find here. Now, I am not arguing or suggesting this but by some of the reasoning you propose one could argue that the reception controversies deserve their own page. Why list them all here if a reader could link to another page? Jellypear (talk) 19:52, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Images add visual interest to a page; if they're behind a hyperlink they don't do that. I'm not entirely sure what is being proposed here. Is it

That the description of science education should not appear in the Curriculum of the Waldorf schools article, but alone among curriculum subjects, should be here
That the description should be duplicated in both Curriculum of the Waldorf schools and here
That the description should be staggered across both articles ?

None of these sound like a good idea to me. If the article became to long, then yes there would be a case for further splitting, but not for a "Controversies ..." article, as that would probably be a WP:POVFORK. Alexbrn (talk) 20:07, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Visual interest to a page is all well and good provided that it follows the clearly stated dual criteria established in WP:PERTINENCE. From among your choices # 2 best represents my view. It is unacceptable not to discuss core academic subjects on this wiki page - language arts, mathematics, and science (at least). It's reasonable to assume that this is basic information people come to this page for and its existence on another page, within the context of all subject matter, should have no bearing on it needing to be here in order to make this page sufficiently informative. I am also inclined to say that it ought not be verbatim, but also directed towards fulfilling the overall needs of this page which is to explain Waldorf education as a whole and not just the curriculum structure and content. Jellypear (talk) 21:00, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Duplicating content would be bad, for obvious reasons. The curriculum section here though should have a summary of the sub article (and it would be right for that to touch on the curriculum's main topics) per WP:SPINOFF. I suggest the right approach here would be to sort out these descriptions in the curriculum article. Once that text is settled, it can then be summarised here. Alexbrn (talk) 21:12, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

It constitutes a clear POV fork to have the straight description of the curriculum in a separate article, but the critiques of the curriculum (of which there are now ample here) in this article. The whole curriculum should be briefly summarized here, without more attention being given to any one point than any other. The science curriculum should have at least as much space as the critique of pseudoscience, for example, or we are in flagrant opposition to NPOV. hgilbert (talk) 21:20, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Human heart image and caption

The caption underneath the graphic of the human heart should give the reader text important to the Waldorf education approach to teaching the children about this organ. If we say instead what Steiner's thoughts were then we should not pussy-foot around his outright statement that the heart is not a pump, that it is instead primarily a mediator organ linking the lower animal functions with higher nervous functions (Steiner, Spiritual Science and Medicine, 1948.) He said the blood moved through the body by other means, that the heart beats as an effect of the movement of the blood, not as the motive force of the blood circulation.

So what of this fringe theory is taught in Waldorf schools? That is the key issue. Binksternet (talk) 17:29, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps that is a great issue for the world to consider. However, on this wikipedia page the role of editors is to present whatever information from RS exists on this issue. The most reliable source cited in this section makes no comment whatsovever. The next two sources involve the opinions and perspectives of the British Humanists, which do have a POV on the public funding of Steiner schools and their document is not peer-reviewed. Thus, as a source, their document is reliable for the content of their own views which are duly reported here. Citations to Steiner's views in the image caption are providing new information that is not in the text itself. Moreover, any link between Steiner's views on the heart and the content of Waldorf education (the topic of this page) has not been made by any RS. Why no one can see that this does not follow WP:NPOV and is also WP:UNDUE in terms of the purpose of the entire page is beyond me. Do some people have a strong perspective on this? Yes. Should it be mentioned on the page? Yes. Has this been shown to be a broadly held opinion, supported by RS's on Waldorf education (the topic of the page) perhaps not. So the editor's role is to consider WP:UNDUE. Bottom line: find a peer-reviewed source that states that Waldorf students are taught Steiner's view that "heart is not a pump" (or whatever the contention is) and you're in the clear. Until then, this wiki page cannot draw the connection. That would be editorializing. Jellypear (talk) 17:52, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Lede

The rewritten lede has two parts: historical and critical. There is little description of what is particular to the educational approach. hgilbert (talk) 21:22, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

I expanded this part myself yesterday and I tried to be attuned neutrality, accuracy and brevity. Obviously a great many things (some of which should expand on what is in the lede) ought to be in the currently non-existent WALDORF EDUCATIONAL THEORY section. If that is done, I can be more-or-less ok with this. Your thoughts?

"Waldorf education is based on anthroposophy, a spiritual philosophy developed by Rudolf Steiner. Child development is seen as taking place over three seven-year stages, each with its own developmental emphasis on the principles of thinking, willing and feeling. Throughout, Waldorf education places a strong emphasis on integrating academic, practical and artistic pursuits. Formative assessment is generally preferred over summative assessment, particularly in the pre-adolescent years. The schools have a high degree of autonomy to decide how best to construct their curricula and govern themselves. Waldorf students have drawn praise for being well-rounded and well-socialized people." Jellypear (talk) 21:36, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Where's the beef?

In the ongoing article reorganization, it's apparent that we do not have much material describing what actually happens in everyday Waldorf education. The section on secondary education, for example is very thin (and would be even thinner is the unsourced content were removed). Are there any good reliable sources giving good accounts that we could use to fill in this missing content? Alexbrn (talk) 12:45, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

There is now a new organization but it does not overcome the fact that very little is explained on this page. Everything under "Educational Theory" needs a re-write, not necessarily to revisit sources but to be written with attention to the reader's need for information. Truly, this page is ghastly. It's so wordy, but it hardly explains anything. I think a major contributor to this is how different editors have wanted to make sure that certain sourced quotations have gotten into the text, not realizing that in the process they made little use of the valuable descriptive material the authors have provided to them. If you read any of these RS materials individually, they are informative and balanced in a way that this page lacks. Woefully. Get to work, wikipedians! Jellypear (talk) 08:32, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Pseudoscience - Image of the Heart

I have removed the image of the heart because of WP:PERTINENCE but also because it is being used as a call-out box for various viewpoints. (Forgive me if the exact timeline is not 100% correct. I don't want to spend all day on this.)

1. An IP address made the following edit: "Steiner viewed the human heart as not just a pump, but also a sense organ, this view being scientifically validated" and then linked to a peer-reviewed article in support. The article, while generally a reliable source for information about the heart makes no mention of Rudolf Steiner's views or of Waldorf Education. So, not pertinent.

2. Then, User:Binksternet makes the following edit "Steiner said the pumping of the human heart did not "cause" blood to move through the body. He said the heart was primarily an organ for mediating between "lower" animal functions and "upper" consciousness" and cites a work by Rudolf Steiner.

3. Then, User:Hgilbert makes the following edit "Steiner suggested that the blood moves autonomously, the heart boosting and regulating its circulation" and offers a non-Steiner source.

3. Then User:Binksternet changes it again back to Steiner and "the heart is not a pump."

5. Then I remove the image and caption completely

4. Then User:Alexbrn changes it again back to Steiner and "the heart is not a pump."

WP:PERTINENCE clearly states says that "Images must be (1) relevant to the article that they appear in and (2) be significantly and directly related to the article's topic". The image must meet the criteria that (1) the "the human heart" is discussed in the article and (2) the image is significantly and directly related to the article's topic. Just as a reminder: the article's topic is Waldorf Education.

Criteria 1. Jelinek and Sun (2003) are the sole academic source concerning the Waldorf Science curriculum in this section. They do not make any mention of the role of the human heart in their paper. The second mention comes from a TES news article which reports that the British Humanists identified a book "The Educational Tasks and Content of the Steiner Waldorf Curriculum, which says the model of the heart as a pump is unable to explain “the sensitivity of the heart to emotions.” There is no mention as to what Steiner himself said or didn't say regarding the heart. The third reference comes from the British Humanist document. This is not peer-reviewed and can only be viewed as a RS for their own perspective. Given the tenuous nature of the "heart" issue at all from a RS perspective it is WP:UNDUE to make an image out of it on a page that, again, fails to even show any Waldorf teachers or students. Criteria 2. The image must also be "significantly and directly related to the article's topic." The article's topic is not hearts, views on hearts, pseudoscience, Steiner's views on hearts, etc. It is on Waldorf Education. If an image is needed, I would propose an image of the book itself with the caption from TES "this book says the model of the heart as a pump is unable to explain “the sensitivity of the heart to emotions.” And apart from all of this, let's be real about what has happened. This image should not be used as a call-out box for this issue. I argue it is happening because it is not significantly and directly related to the article's topic. There is no debate about what Waldorf students are being taught, or even Waldorf Education's specific stance on this specific issue, because no one with a POV (either way) has any evidence to bolster their stance. This ridiculousness needs to stop and now I am of the mind that I will continue to removing this particular image for the 2nd criteria of WP:PERTINENCE and the fact that this issue needs to be dealt with in the text via RS rather than battling over an image. Jellypear (talk) 17:31, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Well edit-warring is not a solution, for sure. I think you are misreading the WP:PERTINENCE guideline. The "topic" of an article is not just "the headword", but the whole universe of things within that topic, as described in the text; as WP:PERTINENCE states, "articles that use more than one image should present a variety of material near relevant text". This is just common sense and good practice: look at the featured article on The Origin of the Species and note that the images are not just focused on the book or the publication -- but its reception, things which inspired it, things related to it, and things in the far future that it influenced. Illustrations add interest and look nice: they make Wikipedia better. As to the caption, the best source we have on this in the article at the moment is the TES which states: "the model of the heart as a pump is unable to explain 'the sensitivity of the heart to emotions'" - which supports the caption I placed there. Do we want a beefier caption? Alexbrn (talk) 17:46, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes. We continue to have a difference of opinion on this. I do agree that wiki page images needn't relate only to the "headword." For this and other articles that would be a ridiculously strict interpretation. Many "headword" topics are abstract and no images for the headword are even possible. Thus "the whole universe of things within that topic," as you say, is useful for explaining the topic visually. However, I read the guidance that "articles that use more than one image should present a variety of material near relevant text" as procedural, and not that "a variety of material" ought to be there and certainly not so as to subsume the basic criteria set forth that images must be "significantly and directly related to the article's topic." If this, and the Lemuria picture, where textbook illustrations from a Waldorf school or depictions from the curriculum materials for Waldorf teacher preparation, we probably wouldn't be having this discussion. In my view, such images could be "significantly and directly related to the article's topic" for the simple reason that you could entitle them "a Waldorf student's drawing of Lemuria" or "a Waldorf teacher's depiction of the heart as not a pump." The operative word for me in all of this is "Waldorf," which, as in the boy scouting example, all of the images hold to. Finally--as a total aside---some Waldorf curriculum materials show "the organs and their functions" as occurring in 10th grade. I believe many Waldorf high schools use text books at this point. Maybe this is not nearly the issue some people think it is. (OTHOH, maybe that information is incorrect and there is no way of knowing whether textbooks, if used in general, are usually used for this lesson. I don't know. This is just a personal reflection after looking when bodily organs are taught to students. ) Jellypear (talk) 18:29, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

That the article lacks illustrations in other respects is no argument to damage the well-illustrated pseudoscience section by removing its illustrations. The correct solution is to find more good illustrations for the article, even - who knows - better ones for the pseudoscience section. For a variety of reasons, you may find that sourcing and using pictures of children is tricky. Alexbrn (talk) 19:03, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Agreed & Agreed. But with all due respect, that is not the primary concern I have. The inclusion of ten more illustrations---all of happy smiling self-actualized Waldorf students---wouldn't change the fact that other images on the page don't meet the criteria that illustrations be "significantly and directly related to the article's topic". That is issue #1 for me followed by how closely said images refer to a main body text that is grounded in RS, thereby avoiding WP:UNDUE. The lack of other, probably more pertinent images, only exacerbates the main problem. Jellypear (talk) 19:14, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Is there a path to resolution on this? I've written many words on this topic but I feel that the guidelines for images are exceptionally clear. Nothing more needs to be said. Decisions need to be made. What do we do to avoid edit warring on the pictures? I should also mention that grainy image of a child being vaccinated is causing me mild trauma and flashbacks. Ok--I am exaggerating---but it is a rather disturbing and completely unnecessary image. Jellypear (talk) 08:49, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Curriculum (Meta-issue for editors)

User:Alexbrn has asked how one defines the curriculum if the expectation is that schools worldwide are doing this themselves. I have made similar comments in the talk section on Jelinek and Sun (2003). The way I see it, there are 1) Steiner's curriculum thoughts (which can either be found in his lectures & also in the facts of the Stuttgart school); 2) there are many years worth of curricular materials for teacher preparation (self-published books and materials); 3) there is curriculum structure documentation regarding what topics are taught & when (such as in Jelinek, and coming directly out of Waldorf-school sources) and finally 4) there is what actually happens in the classroom---or even in a typical classroom---given the fact that the whole system is set-up to provide a high degree of teacher autonomy and discretion in how they want to put together their lesson plans.

Obviously the world out there takes a variety of viewpoints, and even academic sources (like Jelinek & Sun) aren't as clear as they could be on this matter. It's a conundrum what role we editors have in dealing with this so that we don't impose a POV on it. I do, however, think our task requires us to be aware of it. Jellypear (talk) 19:04, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Another problem is that the curriculum description in Curriculum of the Waldorf schools is packed with anthroposophic sources (which I have started excising). Are there any RS descriptions of what might be typical in a curriculum. Is this a verifiable topic? Alexbrn (talk) 20:21, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

First of all, anthroposophic sources are allowable for self-descriptions, so long as these do not include evaluations ("best school system since Plato's Academy") or controversial material. This is both in accordance with WP policy generally (WP:SELF) and the arbitration guidelines for this article.

Second of all, I just listed a number of verifiable sources we could use. Did you look at any of these? hgilbert (talk) 21:10, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

I thought the ban on anthro sources only extended to controversial issues? I think any reasonable person will agree that primary source material from Waldorf schools on certain topics is actually highly reliable. There may be a difference of opinion on how good it is, or the neutrality of certain kinds of descriptions, but certain primary source documents (ie., Euclidian Geometry is taught for the first time in 9th grade or somesuch) would be far superior to derivative accounts in magazines or other places we could find this. Please reassure me that this is not your intention. I fear that some of the lack of content on the current page came from excising Waldorf-produced content. This is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Waldorf schools do know a lot about themselves, obviously. This page shouldn't be an advertisement or solely express their views but its ridiculous to not consider using information they have produced about themselves. Who is to say that any of us know what we're doing? I'll look up our guidelines as editors and share it in a moment. Jellypear (talk) 21:21, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Common sense must apply, as well as WP:SPS. My main concern is that how can we verify statements about what is in "the" curriculum, given that there appears to be no central curriculum. The whole topic seems like it will need to be approached carefully. Alexbrn (talk) 22:00, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

That is a reasonable concern. But in the absence of any third party sources to verify the statements, one probably just has to let them stand given that a self-published source, if it is identified as such, can be a reliable source of information about itself. If you are really interested in this curriculum issue, I would suggest taking your concern and triangulating it and you may find your answer. There are probably 2 or 3 Waldorf sources you could consult for any one curriculum issue. Then there is a chance someone else wrote a paper or dissertation that confirms or denies whatever claims were made in the Waldorf source. Once you've done that, I think you'll have a reasonable take on the situation. So for example, Jelinek and Sun (2003) produced their own statement of the Waldorf science curriculum and it accords with what Waldorf sources self-report about themselves. For now, that may be the best you've got. I am not sure I see any cause for alarm with this issue other than if you want to prove that something or other is being taught or learned/not learned. For that you'd need to conduct your own original research. It is an interesting question but one I see as lying outside the role of a wikipedia editor. Our job is to accurately and neutrally report whatever currently exists on these topics. Jellypear (talk) 22:21, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Okay, here's where I am with this:

We know from the material here there is no global mandated curriculum
We also know skeptics accuse W.E. of concealing its curriculum
From various news reports not (yet?) included we know some parents feel they didn't know what they were getting into with W.E.

Yes Wikipedia is stating in its own voice and as fact what the curriculum is (especially in the Curriculum of the Waldorf schools article. This is a cause for concern. Alexbrn (talk) 08:52, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I see your point but as editors this is not our issue to untangle. Let the stated curriculum speak for itself and be clear who it is attributable to. (In this case it is actually better to not muddy the waters with other sources and make it clear that it is all Waldorf-published.) Then, let the criticisms speak for themselves. There is no way to deal with the "concealing of the curriculum" here. You can't make the case for them. They have to make it and they have to get it published in a RS. Until that happens, you must describe the curriculum and describe the criticisms. Also, there is the consideration that the "concealing the curriculum" thing could be wrong/untrue/half-true, etc. You can't let the fact that the concern exists override the primary responsibility of truly offering a meaningful description of the fundamentals of this topic to readers. Also, don't forget that the nature of this is that things will change. It is not written in stone. As the world changes, this page will change but until it does you've got to be clear about where it is right now and let it be. Jellypear (talk) 09:41, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

This TES piece is saying that the curriculum is secondary to a child's individual needs, and a holistic approach is taken. This would seem an important point to make. Alexbrn (talk) 10:25, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Four Temperaments

I am soliciting general discussion on where this topic should go and what purpose it serves in our effort to inform the reader about Waldorf schools. (I am not saying there is no purpose.) Unless I am wrong, my understanding is that this is not Anthroposophy per se but rather a kind of heuristic device suggested by Steiner for teachers in order to help them work with polarities toward the end goal of encouraging balance. (??????) And, its way, way more complicated than as described in this section. (see both Grant and Whedon's fuller descriptions). In fact, both say that Steiner considered all children fundamentally sanguine! And, this statement: "Steiner believed that teachers must correct any swing toward any one temperament" misrepresents the source. Grant was stating that teachers themselves must correct any swing toward any one temperament. With children it is not really a matter of "correcting." Who wrote the stuff on this page anyway??? I am hardly the one to explain all of this but its patently obvious that this wiki page has far to go even towards being true to the source material. So, again, what is the purpose of discussing this for the page? How does it inform the reader about Waldorf education other than to show that the idea exists? Jellypear (talk) 22:00, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

The source states Steiner did advocate harmonizing the humours of children (the eggs and pastry example). I wrote some (most?) of this -- there was a lot of discussion of it several weeks ago: you could useful review this page's archive. Alexbrn (talk) 22:17, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Quoting Grant: "In order to teach effectively Steiner believed that teachers had to correct any tendency to swing towards any one particular temperament. For example, a plegmatic teacher with no interests..." The quote in the journal article concerning "correcting" refers to teachers not students. That is not at all clear on the wiki page. Teachers' temperament is not referred to at all. I'll check out the archives. Thanks for the suggestion. Jellypear (talk) 22:31, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

That's right he mentions teachers self-correcting as well. But that's mentioned in the text here. I'm not sure what you mean when you say teachers' temperament isn't mentioned, in the light of the text you quote: "Steiner believed that teachers had to correct any tendency to swing towards any one particular temperament" ??? Alexbrn (talk) 08:38, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

The text as written before was all about what teachers do to students. They categorize them. They group them. They do unspecified things to get those choleric hitters to not hit and the bad readers to be better readers via making jelly donuts verboten. But I see there is a new version. If memory serves, it has gone from being an actual quote (albeit misattributed), to a misattributed paraphrase, to something about teachers now. Its an improvement though. In all seriousness, I'm not sure what ought to be done with this section because the source being used is primarily interested in how Steiner picked up on the ancient humours idea and then applied it in a modern context. He is a Classicist. The paper is interesting and well done but extremely challenging if you need to use it to explain how this idea is being used today in Waldorf schools. Just because Steiner made a recommendation about trying out no fats or sugars with a academically disinterested child for a little while doesn't mean that is the situation going on today if a teacher has a poor reader. Of course, it doesn't mean that it's not going on. So this RS thing is exceptionally difficult and there will be squabbles based on POV and this contributes to the wordy, yet uninformative, page before us. Jellypear (talk) 09:20, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

The section is the result of merging sections: to see it at its fullest, look at this diff [9]. Alexbrn (talk) 09:37, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

DFES report on Waldorf education

This might be useful: A DFES report characterizes Waldorf education as follows: hgilbert (talk) 02:46, 11 January 2013 (UTC) "The premise from which Steiner education starts is that “each human being comprises body, soul and spirit” (Rawson and Richter 2000: 14). Education is meant to be part of the process whereby “the spiritual core of the person [strives] to come ever more fully to expression within and through the organism he or she has inherited and must individualise” (op. cit.: 7). To this end, the range of human faculties are awakened (cognitive, affective, creative, etc.) in a balanced way according to the anthroposophical model of human development. Integral to Steiner school education is encouragement of balanced growth towards “physical, behavioural, emotional, cognitive, social and spiritual maturation” (op. cit.: 7). Steiner pedagogy recognises “willing” (the control of limbs and bodily movement), “feeling” (the affective domain of the aesthetic and emotional senses) and “thinking” (the cognitive domain of rational thought). Willing dominates pedagogy up to age seven when learning by imitation is very important. Between 7 and 14, children learn through their aesthetic senses, whilst from 14 upwards attention is given to the rapidly awakening senses of reason.

The Steiner curriculum is based on what Rudolf Steiner indicated would be appropriate for children of each age in accordance with his view of child development. It has evolved over the years through a testing in practice of this principle and is documented in publications such as Rawson and Richter (2000). Ideally, pupils follow the curriculum from early years through Classes 1 to 12. Formal learning begins at age 7. Before then, children are said to learn “primarily through imitation and play”, and what they need according to Steiner principles is “a secure, caring and structured environment where activities occur in a meaningful context” (Rawson and Richter 2000: 16)." "Possibly the most distinctive single element of Steiner education is the two hour main lesson that is held at the beginning of each day. Fundamentally, Rudolf Steiner established a pattern for the whole period of Class 1 to Class 12. This is a main lesson up until morning break, followed by usually two subject lessons before lunch and then two further subject lessons after lunch. All classes broadly follow this pattern, whether the pupils are 6 or 16 years of age. The purpose of the main lesson is to allow sustained concentration on a topic for a significant block of time – ideally one month. An appreciation of the significance of this structure is crucial to an understanding of how the class teacher system really works. In the youngest classes, children are more likely to have their own teacher for some or all of the subject lessons, but unlike maintained primary schools, there is a very clear complementary timetable of subject teaching throughout the main primary years that continues into upper school (Classes 9-12). Another distinctive characteristic of Steiner education is the absence of a formal hierarchy amongst teachers. Responsibility for leadership belongs to a college of teachers which Rudolf Steiner intended should run the school as a ‘republican academy’ (Gladstone 1997). A central responsibility of that leadership is to embody and develop the spiritual life of the school, as well as to exercise responsibility for its educational activities and management.

An integral feature of Steiner schooling is the importance attached to family support for the education of the child, and the importance of adult learning and development in the wider school community. The schools need to explain their distinctive philosophy to parents and do so through means such as evening lectures or informative articles in newsletters. Parents are frequently invited to the regular festivals which form part of the work of the schools and where they can see their children’s work. As with maintained schools, there are regular information evenings and teacher-patent consultation events. Some of the schools offer classes in art, craft or other aspects of the distinctive Steiner approach from which adults can benefit. Many parents are also significantly involved in the running of the schools, perhaps as trustees, but often in a practical sense including the maintenance and upkeep of the buildings."

This is very good. Does anyone have a problem with this? We could crib off this structure, and some of the language, for Anthro Basis, Curriculum and in the last section - which I felt was deeply missing - for what is often called "learning communities" in other educational settings. I think this is where discussion of the 4 Temperaments should go because although it is true that Steiner based them off the Greek Humours, etc., how they are used today is as way of working with personality and individuality in a social setting. Personally I would view them as a seeking to create social balance as much or even more than individual balance in the classroom because of course children are moving through developmental stages. If children are fundamentally sanguine, "categorization" as is represented on the page isn't quite accurate. And there is a large component involving the "inner development" of the teacher because the teacher, as an adult, is capable of more self-awareness and modulating their behavior and responses. Of course, these are my views. What matters is what is in the sources and it should be noted that not many of them mention it at all - which is why we are faced with working with this challenging (although very good) piece by a Classicist. I am thinking it is a little WP:UNDUE for the 4 Temperaments to have their own section. I propose working with the DfES explanation, quoting it as needed, but not in its entirety of course. The ideas would need to be synthesized with other RS, as appropriate, and especially if there are any differences in opinion. This latter part will take time, which is why it would be helpful to know if other editors are on-board because it might mean that the description will necessarily look poorly sourced for a while. As for what should be in these sections, however, I think they've hit the mark. Jellypear (talk) 14:55, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Grant's piece is published in a leading peer-reviewed education journal, and is quite clear for the content we've used - so shouldn't be supplanted. Also bear in mind this WP article is entitled "Waldorf education" and not "Waldorf today", so if Steiner's notions are being abandoned in practice, that doesn't mean we should remove them from the theoretical portions of the article. However, there's plenty of good stuff in the UWE report too, insofar as it describes Waldorf schooling in the UK - so we should certainly use it (more). Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 15:07, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree. Grant's piece should not be supplanted. It has a place and it is a good article. It just can't bear the weight of explaining this whole issue as a single source which is what it is being asked to do right now.Jellypear (talk) 15:13, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

And interestingly, the UWE report cites Grant's piece as a source ... Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 15:15, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Hadn't seen that. A lot of material to cover. I am getting an education. :) But I'll be be plain. There has has been a lot of "quotation mining" on this page from various POVs. It is what directed me to start reading TALK in the first place and to decide to start editing myself. Good wiki pages demonstrate a synthesis of sources. It is easy to spot when that is not happening, particularly if you have ever been involved in collaborative writing before. A few quick reference checks on the stinkiest stuff - such as Grover Whitehurst appearing to skewer David Elkind - proves that it is happening. All subject matter aside, I detest this. If someone takes the time to write an academic article, or produce a journalistic piece, or enter into a public point/counterpoint debate, others who want to reproduce their thoughts have a moral obligation to summarize the original source authentically. Criticism of it is obviously fine, but only after the original piece has been accurately summarized. IMHO. Jellypear (talk) 17:02, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Hmmmm. I will observe, in general, that thinking one has a monopoly on true and morally-righteous writing (perhaps with the added rider that one's fellow editors don't) is not a good basis for editing Wikipedia. Take the case of Elkind/Whitehurst. When I arrived at this article, Elkind was quoted without a whisper of Whitehurst's response. In my view Whitehurst does (at least attempt to) skewer Elkind. Writing that Elkind is "ignoring empirical evidence", "not letting empirical evidence get in the way of his argument", "ignoring a substantial body of observation and research that runs counter to his assertions", using research "anecdotally and without attention to obvious contradictions", and characterizing Elkind's piece as part of a cycle of "fad and fancy" — is as close as it gets to one academic saying to another "you're talking shit". That, in my view, is notable. You, without a source, have shrugged this - in Wikipedi'a voice mark you - as a "typical exchange" and then airbrushed-out all of Whitehurst's misgivings about Elkind's reliability, and his pungent wording, in your re-write. I think that's POV, and you have failed to characterize Whitehurst's response accurately. However, I will not do you the disservice of saying I "detest" what you've done, say that your work stinks, accuse you of not being authentic, or claim that that you have deviated from your moral obligation. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 17:50, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Please accept my apologies for causing offense. I did not know that was the case regarding Elkind/Whitehurst earlier on this page. I would view that as a problem as well because the piece was clearly written as a point-counterpoint approach to the question. One shouldn't include one side without the other. That is what I am talking about concerning "quote mining." Also, I do not think I have a monopoly on "true and morally-righteous writing." In addition, I agree that Whitehurst's response to Elkind is basically that he is "talking shit." But I think it is a mistake to write what he says as if it is an assessment of Elkind's reliability as a scholar. Elkind is a Piagetian and Whitehurst is an Empiricist. Whitehurst is attacking the guys down the hall and their methods which he finds insufficient. He is not attacking Elkind personally - only his brand of scholar in this field. Whitehurst would probably vigorously come to Elkind's defense if someone were to say that he was not a good scholar or that his work, by the standards of the methods he uses, is lacking. Finally, I agree that "in a typical exchange" probably goes to far. I do think this exchange is highly representative of this debate but the statement comes out of my personal preference for transitions and probably should not be there. I will take it out. Jellypear (talk) 19:12, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Rest assured, I don't take offense. I am merely pointing out what I see as unproductive modes of discourse. When Whitehurst says "Elkind’s not letting empirical evidence get in the way of his argument" - that looks pretty personal to me. Perhaps you could perform some edits so that readers will accurately pick up the "shittiness" which we agree Whitehurst thinks is inherent in Elkind's argument. At the moment it reads like they had a mild disagreement over some points of detail. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 19:47, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Anthroposophical Basis section - differing views of purpose

Based on some recent editing, it seems apparent that there are differing views on the purpose of this section. In some of the stuff I have been adding, I have viewed this as an opportunity to chronologically tell the story of where the educational ideas came from. The purpose of this section would be, for me, to show how Waldorf education is an outgrowth of anthroposophical ideas in order to move on to the specifics of the approach, which themselves are practices. User:Alexbrn has edited it so that (in my take anyway) the purpose of this section is to declare and describe the role of Anthroposophy in the schools today - in underpinning the organization, design of buildings, and teacher training. And then there is a characterization of the viewpoints on the presence of an Anthroposophical influence by Ullrich. I'm going to change it back but rather than get into a cycle of edit/undo I ask: is there any consensus on what purpose this section should serve? Jellypear (talk) 19:40, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Your contributions are good, I think, but some need better placement. A section entitled "Anthroposopical basis" should start with a statement about how based everything is on anthroposophy, surely. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 19:50, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

"how based everything is on anthroposophy" - This is what is tricky, there is a range of opinion on whether or not "everything" is based on anthropophy. There is no question that Waldorf education is based in Anthroposophy historically and organizationally as a part of a set of anthro movements. And some ideas and concepts pervade. So, discussing an anthro basis is warranted. WP:NPOV is tricky. I haven't resolved on this either. Jellypear (talk) 20:19, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Is there any source that says anything other that W.E. is based on anthroposophy? All the high-quality sources say, so -- and, when Woods, Ashley & Woods asked "how important it is that teachers and other staff are knowledgeable about anthroposophy", "the large majority of schools (15) affirmed that it was indispensable or of very great importance. For example: 'Very – basis of all we do' etc etc". I'm not see any "range" whatsoever. What are your sources? Why are Oberski and Ullrich to be doubted here, where elsewhere in this article their views are given as unopposed fact? Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 20:29, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Not arguing that WE is not based on anthroposophy. Whether "everything" in WE is based on anthroposophy is the distinction. Some people view Waldorf Education = Anthroposophy. I am not one of those people. But, again, none of that matters. It is what the RS have to say. I don't have a clear sense at the moment as to what has been said regarding WE=anthropopsophy or the degree to which "everything" is based on anthroposophy. Only commitment I have is to representing the range of opinions, as I presume everyone else here wants to do as well. Jellypear (talk) 20:44, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

(Off topic) Well, as has been discussed here before the problem is the "revealed knowledge" nature of Steiner's views. Once part of anthroposophy is denied, then the whole belief system crumbles as it is based on his divine communion with the spirit world. Like some religions, it's an "all or nothing" investment - and (like those religions) that is its critical vulnerability. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 20:55, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

(Off topic) Actually, not. Steiner never suggested that his insights were absolute; he repeatedly urged people to check them, and reject them if they did not check out. His "spiritual scientific research" was no more guaranteed to be accurate, than "natural scientific research". In both cases, one does one's best. The invalidation of a particular result in science does not invalidate all other results, or even the scientific method itself. hgilbert (talk) 21:43, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Developmental Approach Section

A few comments. I am emphatically NOT trying to excise any sources from this section, even though the sources coming out is the practical outcome. I have tried to rewrite for explanation. In general I would say that more sources should go in, to either expand or so as not to rely on the DfES report so much. The question is how to do this while still making the explanation straightforward and clear. I am also not trying to pass this off and the best thing in the world. It was a quick write-up but one that I hope is useful. Jellypear (talk) 18:55, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Don't be afraid to remove sources - especially less good ones - if they're no longer needed. But bear in mind Woods, Ashley & Woods - useful as it is - does not appear to be a peer-reviewed source, and is largely specific to the UK. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 18:59, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

User:Hgilbert made some good changes to this section. Linking to the threefold nature stuff is definitely the way to go. I didn't know that page existed. I made some edits which I hope increase clarity. Obviously, I defer to your content expertise. The problem I had was with how "jargony" the new explanation became. Phrases like "the feeling life" are a bit dense, for lack of a better word. I looked at this section in terms of answering a few questions - 1) How is the child viewed during each of the developmental stages? 2) What is the child specifically brought to do during their time in school as a result of this view? - and your contribution - 3) What does the teacher do, or how does the teacher approach their task given this approach? The section seemed light on #2 and heavy on #3 to me. The good news for all of us is that there are many good RS to write up this portion. But how do we make it as clear and useful as possible? Jellypear (talk) 19:32, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Good points. I have changed "feeling life" to "feelings"; any further improvements are much appreciated. hgilbert (talk) 19:53, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

One more thing and I am not sure how to express it. With the exception of what you just changed, each section begins with "children learn through empathy" or "children learn through thinking and judgment." This can be taken in two ways. The first way is as in "children aged 7-14 learn subjects in these schools via their empathetic capacities" and "children aged 14+learn subjects in these schools by thinking about things and judging them/evaluating them" - in other words - this is how the learning happens. The second way is more declarative as in "[implied all] Children aged 3-7 learn through their empathy" and "[implied all] Students aged 14-17 learn by thinking" according to our viewpoint. I have seen this phraseology especially by Waldorf-affiliated writers, and less by non-practitioners tasked with explaining the approach. Unless I do not understand, I think the correct meaning is more aligned with the former as in "we approach them through this capacity at this age" because this is what we see as dominant developmentally for children this age. Empathy, thinking, and affect are still alive (or growing) within the child even if the teaching focus is on one or the other at that point in time. (BTW, what happened to "will" in the 3-7 year old - why is empathy used here? Or, is this developing something like an emphathetic will? I will have to go and look at Uhrmacher's piece.) I hope this makes some kind of sense?? The way I was able to grasp this was through the catchy "willing, feeling, thinking" description that non-Waldorf people tend to use and it looks like this (or at least how I understand it):

(3-7) Willing/Hands (ie., using your body and sense perception to understand, DOING things & making things happen) but feeling and intellectual capacities are growing
(7-14) Feeling/Heart (ie., living into stories & feeling numbers, sounds, language, etc. with your emotions) but intellectual and willing capacities are growing too
(14+) Thinking/Head (ie., wanting and needing to think things through on one's own, to challenge, argue, & apply one's own judgement) and capacities for feeling and willing have matured beyond a child's (at least one would hope!)

Anyway, I thought I would share my thoughts on how I arrived at my understanding, such that is is. It is an interesting question how to communicate this and it appears to have been approached in different ways by the authors we can use here. No sure who has done this best for these purposes? Jellypear (talk) 21:16, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

I was aware of some ambiguity here, and we should address this. We should be clear that Waldorf education believes that children primarily learn through these qualities; we are not asserting that this is the case. hgilbert (talk) 03:24, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Imagination

The role of the imagination should be given a section of its own. Here are some sources from the earlier version: hgilbert (talk) 19:59, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

The approach emphasizes the role of the imagination in learning,^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4] developing thinking that includes a creative as well as an analytic component.^[5]^[6]

Refs

^ Thomas William Nielsen, Rudolf Steiner's Pedagogy Of Imagination: A Case Study Of Holistic Education, Peter Lang Pub Inc 2004 ISBN 3-03910-342-3
^ Carrie Y. Nordlund, "Art Experiences in Waldorf Education", Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Missouri-Columbia, May 2006
^ Southworth, Cheryl Ridgeway, Geometry, fir trees and princes: Imaginative cognition in education, Ph.D. dissertation, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1988, 294 pages; AAT 8823477
^ Bo Dahlin, The Waldorf School - Cultivating Humanity. Karlstad University Studies, 2007, p. 69
^ Freda Easton, The Waldorf impulse in education:Schools as communities that educate the whole child by integrating artistic and academic work, Ph.D. thesis, Columbia University Teachers College, 1995
^ Ogletree, Earl J., Creativity and Waldorf Education: A Study.

Why? Can't this be covered via comments regarding artistic integration across the curriculum? Or, if thoughtfully done, the idea could be in short curriculum subject sections on Reading/Mathematics & Science? Jellypear (talk) 21:25, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

There is also the Imagination & Socialization section that could be brought up. I am not sure if that belongs under "reception" because there have been quite a few papers that have studied these issues not as side effects but as purposeful aspects of the curriculum. Just another thought. Jellypear (talk) 21:38, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Primary features of the education

Ullrich identifies the major features of Waldorf education as follows: (Heiner Ullrich Rudolf Steiner, Continuum Library of Educational Thought, 2008' pp. 142-150

Waldorf schools characteristically have: supportive communities committed to their unique educational model;child-oriented architectural spaces for "learning and living"; classes not differentiated by performance; block teaching of major academic subjects; holistic learning, whereby each lesson has a component oriented toward the will, one oriented toward the emotions, and one "encouraging concentrated thought"; an emphasis on productive, self-determined work in interdisciplinary areas of experience; special annual projects including class plays and individual presentations as well as regular shadings of work at school festivals; reports that characterize individual academic progress and personal development, rather than students' position in comparison to others; a primary teacher that stays with the class for a number of years, frequently even for all of grades 1-8, and who is responsible for core academic instruction but also stands as a "role model for personal development" and support for students, a hierarchical relationship that shifts to independent responsibility by ninth grade.

I suggest we create a section of the article describing each of these themes, including their critical reception. Does this seem helpful? hgilbert (talk) 11:08, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Instead of, or as well as, the existing sections? Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 06:47, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Major sections should remain. These could be subsections or in some cases might integrate with existing subsections . hgilbert (talk) 12:15, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

New section: "Evaluations of students progress"

This new section has just been added.[10] There are a couple of problems with it:

A general lack of in-text attributions makes Wikipedia say a lot of glowing things about Waldorf as fact and in her own voice.
Much (all?) of this content would be better placed in the Studies of Waldorf education article.

I am removing this section for now; if this material is to be re-added to Wikipedia these problems must be addressed. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 12:27, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Though detailed information about the studies certainly belong in the subarticle, the results of studies should be summarized in this article. Otherwise you are creating a POV fork, where critiques and personal reactions have free rein, but actual studies are squelched. hgilbert (talk) 12:54, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I have addressed the cases where in-text attributions where lacking (there were actually very few of these). See the above comment on your suggestion that no studies should be reported on here.

If you would like to modify or add material, please do. Please do not remove the entire section, however. hgilbert (talk) 13:02, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

A POV fork is creating an article like "Criticism of ..."; splitting out studies is a topic-based split, in line with other topic based splits from this article. The sub-article's content should be summarized using a summary style in the main article. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 13:09, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Except in the case of this article, there is discussion that WE teaches pseudoscience and other stuff which makes actual studies about the method's effectiveness (or not) highly relevant information. Here is some of my own POV shining but while its great that Eugenie Scott - who has never conducted a scientific study of Waldorf education - says that the schools teach the pseudoscience of a 19th century nutcase, I am more interested in what researchers who have evaluated the schools using scientific methods have to say. Jellypear (talk) 17:42, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Amusing, then, that those who wish to critique WE's pseudoscience also wish to prevent the light of science from shining into the article. hgilbert (talk) 19:55, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

(OT?) Well, yes, the irony there is not lost on me. If I were editing a different kind of page I would probably make a stink about Eugenie Scott's comments as an argument from authority. She is a subject matter on science in general, but her expertise on what is or is not taught to students in these schools, as well as what success students have with this education, is very small. If she conducted a peer-reviewed study that came back and supported her statements that the students were being taught pseudoscience then I would have a very different opinion. It's unclear to me what her relationship to the schools are and why she holds the strong opinions she does. In any event, not including studies - when they exist on topics under discussion on this page - is a POV fork. What an odd page this is. No one affiliated with the schools can be a RS on what happens in them and peer-reviewed studies are considered somehow not important enough to have ample space on the page. Jellypear (talk) 20:45, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I just read this section that was removed. I have been busy and never saw it when it was put in and then taken out. I don't see any problem with this. They are all reliable sources, and assuming that that the studies have been summarized accurately, I see no reason why they shouldn't be here. Is the objection that they would be better integrated within the text sections---speaking to the issues they deal with? If so, let's work together to do that. Studies of the efficacy of this education are the most important things to have on this page, IMHO. Talk is cheap. Show me the data. Jellypear (talk) 01:46, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Waldorf Education is controversial.

I have thought long and hard about the edit warring over this bit. Without a doubt, this section needs to be rewritten with all editors taking note of WP:WFTO. The leading sentence cannot stand because it describes Waldorf Educuation from a POV rather than describing various disputes or differences of opinion. This is not wikipedian - full stop. Just for reference here are some other pages that do not have any sentence claiming the subject matter is controversial. *I am expressing no personal views on these topics - only noting that striking differences of opinion exist on these topics and they are certainly not uncontroversial topics.

But wikipedia doesn't say any of these things are controversial. It describes what the controversies entail. So there are sentences like this:

Opposition to FGM focuses on...
The effectiveness, ethics and legality of deprogramming has been questioned by scholars,
Ethical and legal questions regarding informed consent and autonomy have been raised over non-therapeutic neonatal circumcision

Wikipedia recommends using this kind of format if you must write about something you disagree with personally "So-and-so argues that ____________, and therefore, ___________." This section needs to follow this format, even if my edits are not the perfect solution. A few other comments: Benn is not a RS on this particular topic given her advocacy role. The second book, from the LLewelyn press, is a hilarious citation. Is there any place else on this page he would be considered a credible source? The former verbiage about "views differ on the effectiveness..." is WP:Weasel. If there are educational scholars who speak to Waldorf education's late introduction of reading or ICT as controversial then they should be cited. Right now the idea is just hanging out there without being attributed to anyone in particular. Jellypear (talk) 23:58, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

I've looked at the corresponding pages and been astonished at the difference in approach. I agree with your analysis and have modified the lede to conform more closely to WP standard usage. In particular, WP:Lead emphasizes that undue weight should not be given to any topic in the introduction. There has been an incredibly disproportionate part of the lede devoted to criticism. More should be added about the actual content of the pedagogical approach. hgilbert (talk) 00:56, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually, WP:LEAD says that the weight given to topics in the introduction should align with the treatment of those topics in the article body. Very simply, the lead section is a summary of the article body. It is not the place where a negative balance found in sources, and in the article, should be countered by giving positive thoughts equal footing. Binksternet (talk) 05:28, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the lead was a fair summary of the article per WP:LEAD, including prominent controversies as it should. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 06:54, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Fully one-third of the lead is devoted to controversies. That is not by any stretch of the imagination a fair summary. hgilbert (talk) 12:44, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

The non-controversial aspects of the article have expanded since the lead was written, so the correct thing to do is to expand the lead to encompass them; not to delete content you don't like. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 12:55, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I've added some material, but feel it still needs work. I'd appreciate other editors contributions to forming the lead to better reflect the article's content. hgilbert (talk) 13:16, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it's jargon-y, over-cited and introduces novel concepts not present in the body (e.g. "destiny"). I have no idea how to translate Waldorf jargon into readable English, so I won't attempt to. Is it possible to summarize some of this article's existing content using simpler language? Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 13:25, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I've addressed the citation and novelty problems by bringing very parallel wording into the body. We may want to tweak this to avoid excessive repetition, however.

Can you list some of the terms that you are puzzling over so we can simplify this if possible?hgilbert (talk) 13:39, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

maybe jargon is the wrong word, but stuff like "the principle of willing", "integrated individuals", "quantitative summative assessments", "balancing ... modes", "fostering idealism (thinking)", "overarching goals ... to provide ... the basis[sic]" ... it's all a bit costive. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 13:48, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree that it has somehow gotten laden with jargon-esque language and heavy recently. Jellypear (talk) 20:58, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I am less concerned with the proportions of the lede than with stating that "Waldorf education is controversial" in Wikipedia's voice. Wikipedia does not declare topics controversial - period. If I haven't made that clear by the examples I have given, then there is a problem. To take another example look at prostitution. The issues that I have mentioned are intensely controversial - worldwide - but Wikipedia does not declare them controversial. Just because one can credibly say it is not uncontroversial - ie., without any elements of controversy - does not make it controversial. As editors, we are obligated to describe the controversies that exist in proportion to their importance to the topic, as best we can, and nothing more. Moreover, it is recommended that the description is put in this format "So-and-so argues that ____________. This is a little wordy for the lede, which I can appreciate, but where controversies exist, the expectation is that wikipedia is clear and informative about who is making what assertions about the controversial topic. Many controversies have several different elements. Take, for ex., FGM. Critics within the countries where it is practiced do not always share the views with critics outside of the countries where it is practiced. An informative wiki page identifies who says what so that such knowledge can be gained. Jellypear (talk) 17:22, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

As you hint at, in-text attribution is generally not done in the lead; it has more of a summary style, and uses topic sentences to guide the reader (as would be well done elsewhere). Wikipedia says a lot of things are controversial (e.g. The Birth of a Nation, Digital rights management and the One-child policy). Once there are opposing views on a topic, especially in public, it is - by definition - controversial. Given the overall content of the paragraph, stating that "Waldorf education is controversial" is both axiomatic, and ... good style. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 17:44, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

By the way, Jellypear - you don't seem to appreciate that the lead summarizes the body without the need for direct sourcing; your removal of content from the lead on the basis that it is not "RS" is damaging the article, and eroding its NPOV. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 17:49, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't think so. Benn is a journalist and even though she started a pro-state schools organization I think is a RS for whether or not a controversy had occurred in the UK with the opening of some Steiner schools. Ullrich is an educational researcher, who has studied these schools extensively, and is in a position to know and describe the features of discussion related to the schools. Christopher Penczak is a witch and healing practitioner who writes on magic and herbalism. He is not a RS for whether or not Waldorf schools are controversial. Would we be quoting his views on homeopathy on this page? (assuming he has favorable ones...I am just assuming here.) I think not either. I took him out as a RS and I think it should stay that way. I do appreciate that the lede summarizes without direct sourcing so long that it does stick closely to what is contained in the page. But why is there resistance to identifying who has what concerns isn't a page more informative when this is clearly laid out? Isn't that how one would describe something that is controversial? Jellypear (talk) 20:16, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't usually point to other Wikipedia articles to prove a point but in response to that being done by Jellypear I wish to bring notice to the following:

Clearcutting "...is a controversial forestry /logging practice..."
"Genetic pollution is a controversial term for uncontrolled gene flow into wild populations."
Michel Houellebecq "...is a controversial and award-winning French author..."
"The 2001 Clear Channel memorandum is a controversial document..."
"Rogue state is a controversial term applied by some international theorists..."
"Social class in the United States is a controversial issue..."
"Coca eradication is a controversial strategy..."
"Defining personhood is a controversial topic in philosophy and law..."
"The Night Porter "...is a controversial 1974 art film..."
Endoscopic thoracic sympathectomy "...is a controversial surgical procedure..."
"SecuROM is a controversial CD/DVD copy protection and digital rights management (DRM) product..."
"The Aboriginal Tent Embassy is a controversial semi-permanent assemblage..."
"Toddlers & Tiaras is a controversial American reality television series..."
"The Purification Rundown ...is a controversial detoxification program..."

...and many more. There are quite a few Wikipedia articles that tell the reader in Wikipedia's voice that the topic is controversial. My search found 888 articles with some variation of the search terms "is a controversial". Further results would be obtained searching for "is controversial". Binksternet (talk) 18:30, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

The current wording still clearly points to the existence of controversy, but in appropriately nuanced language. hgilbert (talk) 20:10, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Incidentally, most of the sources used to support this claim are clearly not "independent academic sources", as . The one that is closest (a UNESCO journal) in contradiction to other statements by the same author. hgilbert (talk) 20:19, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

The lead is a summary of the article. There is no need to check sources. Binksternet (talk) 20:27, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

There appears to be a difference of opinion concerning what Heiner Ullrich says in his 2000 paper. Under the "A contradictory balance sheet" section, in the first paragraph he descibes a period of isolation followed by recognition of WE as being an educational alternative in Germany. Then, as a result of it being viewed as an educational alternative he says that intensive study has been in progress in "educational circles in Germany" for ten years. He goes on to describe the positions in these educational circles as "highly controversial: they range from enthusiastic support to destructive criticism." My reading of all this is that when he uses the word "controversial" he is describing not Waldorf education itself but the positions taken within educational circles in Germany regarding Waldorf education during this time period. For this reason, a summary such as "According to Heiner Ullrich, Waldorf education is controversial" doesn't stay true enough to the source and has the effect of enlarging his claim. Perhaps the best thing to do is just quote him directly so as to avoid this issue altogether. Jellypear (talk) 21:45, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Jargon

Seems to be an issue. What are the problems?, and let's address them. hgilbert (talk) 21:15, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I am interested to hear what others have to say but here is what I wanted to know when I came to this page for the first time --- what is Waldorf Education? What do the kids do all day? How do they learn readin', writin' and 'rithmatic? How is this similar or different from other ways of approaching the task of education? And, once I felt that I understood the basic parameters - what are the results? I am sure I am weird on this point but I also read the page for citations--- who says what about what topics? Maybe I am not answering your question but in each section I want to know who, what, where, why, why, and how - just as if this were a middle school report. I want simple, straightforward language that means the same thing in other contexts. And, generally, less is more. I'll make some edits if I see things that seem jargon-y but I can see a certain level of nuance in the way you put things that a person with less experience with the education might not make. I know some people don't think that you should be participating here but I think the nature of collaborative work is that if we are working together well, we'll get the best out of everyone and minimize the deficiencies or biases we all have. Jellypear (talk) 00:48, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

I've had a go at this; more no doubt is needed. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 18:46, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Lead etc

I note Jellypear has undone several edits stating there is no discussion of them; well there is (in different places) discussion both of the use of jargon, and of sourcing (or not) for the "controversy" statement - which the undone edits addressed. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 19:07, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

And, BTW, reverting on the basis that "this edit wasn't discussed first" is a kind of WP:OWN behaviour. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 19:13, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

There is an ongoing discussion about the "Waldorf education is controversial" sentence, which has not come to resolution and you shifted from descriptive language to declarative language. Jellypear (talk) 19:33, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I was surprised to see edits of the lead that seemed to butcher the meaning (e.g. replacing "qualitative" or "formative" assessment with "subjective assessment"), and was glad to see the original context restored. Given the on-going discussions of the lead, this was one place where it would have been good to discuss the proposed changes. hgilbert (talk) 22:58, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Well reverting to a jargon-rich version of the lead as a whole will keep it ... jargon-rich. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 10:15, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I was responsible for reverting it back. I agree this is jargon. However, it is jargon within the field of education and educational assessment and it is fair to assume that some readers of this page know what formative and summative assessments are. For those readers who don't there is a link. We make the problem worse if we try to further describe them here. When I refer to jargon on this page, I am talking about Waldorf specific jargon such as "feeling life." Using the word "feelings" (for example) is more straightforward and achieves the same idea. This kind of a thing becomes a particular problem when there is a whole paragraph of Waldorf-specific jargon...and because it is specific to this context, there is no way to refer someone out of the page for more information as in the case of formative/summative assessments. Jellypear (talk) 15:32, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Any jargon that lay readers are unlikely to understand is probably not the best thing to put in a lead. At one point I tried to replace formative and summative assessment with more familiar terms, qualitative and descriptive and standardized or quantitative assessments, but after the merry-go-round traced its path, we are back to the specialized jargon. I do feel these terms remain too specialized for the lead; is there a better wording we can use? hgilbert (talk) 16:59, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Well I had a stab at re-writing, and the whole thing got reverted without discussion (then or now) of the wording. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 17:58, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Controversy over controversy

What about the following for the lede?

Though Waldorf education has achieved wide acceptance as a model of alternative education,<ref>"The Free Waldorf School inspired by Steiner has not stirred comparable discussion or controversy....those interested in the Waldorf School today, be they pedagogically enthusiastic parents, educational scholars, or politicians responsible for education, generally tend to view this school form first and foremost as a representative of internationally recognized models of applied classic reform pedagogy." Ullrich, ''Rudolf Steiner'', p. 140-141</ref> there has also been controversy over the following...

If this material is worth including in the article, include it in the body and summarize it in the lede (if warranted by its weight), in one of the opening paragraphs. Do not try and use it to water-down the controversies paragraph by using it as a kind of qualifying preamble. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 17:50, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

"Though Waldorf education has achieved wide acceptance as a model of alternative education, there has been controversy over the following...." would work for me, I think. If there is any way to address the "so and so says________" guideline in the lead I would very much approve. Mixing the viewpoints of educational researchers with others should be scrupulously avoided. They are two different kinds of analysis and should be presented as such. Jellypear (talk) 19:11, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't work for me:

starting a sentence with "Though" sucks the life out of it
there is no support for a universalized statement "Waldorf education has achieved wide acceptance as a model of alternative education" in the body (though I am prepared to accept this is sourceable)
there is a POV-y caveating effect by having this start to a controversies paragraph
there is a false equivalence between "wide acceptance as a model" and "controversies", implying one "cancels out" the other (should we start the sentence "there is wide consensus among skeptics that that Walford education is a poor educational system"?)
it makes the whole lead positive or neutral, except for this now nullified/caveated final paragraph you are proposing. The whole thing smells too much of POV. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 19:26, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

How Waldorf education makes a fool out of Wikipedia

To recap on some of the above ...

I know some editors here are unhappy with how I "bang on" about conflict of interest, yet I make no apology for doing so. In my view COI-compromised editing has the potential to do real damage to Wikipedia and - more importantly than that - to the state of free knowledge available on the Web.

To make this specific to the current article, User:Hgilbert, a Waldorf-affiliated editor with a COI, has been aggressively editing this article for many years. In a recent edit he reinstated a fantastically bold claim for Waldorf education, that

A 2007 Australian study comparing the academic performance of students at university level found that students who had been at Waldorf schools significantly outperformed their peers from non-Waldorf schools in both the humanities and the sciences.

Wow! research shows that Waldorf students here performed better than all others (including those from prestigious private schools) at university!

The only problem is that it's not true - or at least not verifiable; after probing the source it turns out User:Hgilbert sourced this to a broadcast from a local Australian radio station in which a guest "sounded as if [he] was about to publish his thesis containing the study"; but that now User:Hgilbert doesn't even "remember the researcher's name". "Perhaps" - he asks - "someone can find this ... assuming these came out". That is not at all in accord with Wikipedia's policies on sourcing claims.

This is not just a matter of a little internal bureaucratic SNAFU on Wikpedia; this content feeds out into the real world:

The FAQ of the Irish Steiner Kindergarten Association [11]
A brochure site for the Steiner Academy in Bristol, UK [12]
A brochure site for a Waldorf school in Prague, CZ [13]
A 'did you know' page for Dunedin High School, NZ [14]

When a Waldorf-boosting editor inserts unverifiable pro-Waldorf claims here, and they feed into Waldorf PR material that may affect the decision-making of parents deciding on their children's education, then something very, very wrong in happening in my view. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 21:22, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

I would suggest that if you're concerned about civil POV pushing, the correct venue for this would be to ask for a second review here, as this talk page should theoretically be only about the content of the article, although content and conduct seem unfortunately intertwined as of late. a13ean (talk) 21:31, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

So is this the citation? A Comparative Study of University Performance by Graduates of the Mount Barker Waldorf School (from a Master in Education (M.Ed.) thesis by Bill Wood, Adelaide University). It is just a MA level thesis so it really shouldn't be on par with the other studies, and never should have been used in the first place. On the other hand, it was discussed in a news media piece that presumably was easier to access years ago. (Who knows, maybe it can be now...) For that reason, it could be used on the page, but probably not as a citation for a broad claim as is currently the case. Herein lies the reason why a collaborative atmosphere must be encouraged here. Jellypear (talk) 21:57, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Dork that I am, I love a good citation mystery. It appears that this paper (if in fact this is the reference-is it?) was included in the following book, Alternative Education: Global Perspectives Relevant to the Asia-Pacific Region (2006) by education professor Yoshiyuki Nagata and there was some conference it was presented at. It probably would have been better to use that as the citation. I don't know if I would have included it at all, however, and the claim it is being used for is too broad for it to support given that it is only an MA paper apparently. Jellypear (talk) 23:43, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

It is both true and verifiable. The news media's report on the study is accurately reported here. The news broadcast is certainly an allowable source. We can check the data in detail against the survey results reported in the thesis, though this is not itself a RS (and has not been used as one). Incidentally, WP editors are not responsible to keep media in circulation or to ensure that other editors have access to media, only that the information is accurately reported. As it has been. hgilbert (talk) 23:47, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Just saw the last discovery...we should certainly cite to the book (Springer Verlag), and see if this has other relevant information in it as well. hgilbert (talk) 00:15, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

No. That is not why I mentioned it. Just FYI, really. Also, there could have been several ways that this MA paper diffused to Waldorf schools than through Wikipedia if there was a book and a conference and media coverage. I dunno. I found it and thought it was worthy of sharing. The book itself I have no problem using but Wood's bit is still a MA paper. It should not be included as it is not a RS in itself. Jellypear (talk) 00:28, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

It's unusual that a MA paper would get press. All in all, I don't think the source should have been used and that it was being used to substantiate a much larger claim than it was capable of supporting. This stuff is tricky because we are allowing news reports of self-published material or what amounts to self-published materials so a study would seem to be fair game but I think we have a responsibility to vet what we refer to "a study" carefully. Jellypear (talk) 00:28, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Try to keep civil

Try to keep civil. hgilbert (talk) 00:17, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

The latest change to the lead

seems very helpful, summarizing the situation tidily and coherently. Thanks. hgilbert (talk) 03:29, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

John Thomas (2012)

The following has a similar issues to Dugan & Daar previously.

In 2012 John Thomas, a law professor, suggested that Waldorf education's emphasis on individual rights is inconsistent with society's use of vaccination to escape from disease, and that the Waldorf school system 1 - "[boasts] a 'strong cultural anti-immunization preference among thought-leaders' in its community". Thomas cited vaccination rates of 23% at a Waldorf school in the San Francisco Bay area, compared to 97% in the surrounding county. He stated that children may 2 - "emerge from their school to infect infants, immunocompromised adults, and people whose vaccinations didn't take or have waned, with potentially fatal diseases."

I am not sure how this is supposed to be done in Wikipedia, but these are not quotations of his statements contained in the piece, they are quotations of quotations. The first one is from an unreliable source, a statement by John Holland on the OpenWaldorf website. The second one is from a RS news article. What is the protocol for quoting quotations? Right now it appears as if both quotations are his own thoughts. With the first one, this is a RS issue and with the second it is a matter of proper citation/credit. (I have no issue with this 2nd bit being quoted...just that it follows proper form to note that it is not Thomas' own.) Jellypear (talk) 21:20, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

If the RS chooses to use certain words we relay them, without attempting to debunk, or performing OR into why the source shouldn't have been doing that. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 10:13, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

That is not what I am saying at all. What I am asking is how does one quote a source of a source in Wikipedia? If this were an academic article, for example, it would be considered unacceptable to say John Thomas argues that Waldorf education "boasts a strong cultural anti-immunization preference among thought-leaders' in its community." You would have to put double quotations in there or you would have to say "John Thomas (2012) agrees with John Holland's position that Waldorf "boasts a strong cultural anti-immunization preference among thought-leaders in its community" (Holland: date) This is not about content per se, but about the policy in wikipedia for quoting a quote so that the originator of the idea is properly credited. Do you know the policy? Jellypear (talk) 15:39, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

In the Daar and Dugan case there was the issue that the source was perhaps a bit iffy. In this case there are no such qualms. Thomas elected to adopt those word into his main narrative text, so we are bound to honour his writing. We adopt also the quotation marks he used (use singles inside double) to show he is quoting a source. To be really anal, you could add footnote text to the reference stating "Thomas is quoting xyz source here". Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 17:57, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

You said you have worked with academic journals in your profession, so I am sure you can appreciate that it is not merely anal to attribute quotes correctly. Do you know the policy in Wiki for quoting a quotation? Jellypear (talk) 18:27, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

There is none (that I know of). And, anal as I am when it comes to texts I think it's quite unusual to source an adopted quotation, except to make a point. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 18:45, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

So what are you thinking? I reckon expanding the ref to add a note with a link to the openwaldorf site (I forget whether this is pro- or anti-) might create as many issues as it solves. Is there really an issue here than needs addressing, or are we at the level of "if the reader really wants this level of detail, they can look at the source" ?? Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 16:55, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Overviews of studies

At least two overviews of studies exist, which we could draw on to replace at least some of the direct references to these (and use their summaries rather than ours):

Ullrich (2007), Rudolf Steiner
The Steiner Schools in England hgilbert (talk) 23:33, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

At the risk of provoking more work for us I ask: are both of these RS? Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 12:30, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Why not? One is a book with a reputable publisher and the other is a report distributed to the public by a governmental agency - in other words a gov doc.Jellypear (talk) 16:21, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Jelinek and Sun

The Woods report summary of Jelinek and Sun is rather different than the one here. It includes their findings that "Steiner education is successful in its aim to educate human beings, being particularly successful in stimulating imaginative thought and creating eager, confident and curious students." (p. 30) We should use this overview of studies (rather than cherry-picking only the negative findings.) hgilbert (talk) 12:06, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

In the science section quite possibly. However, it must not be used to water-down the pseudoscience topic, as you have been attempting with your aggressive edits. This has been discussed at length previously. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 12:23, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes...except that you completely removed the science section, where it was previously cited, some time ago. It's a little frustrating to go in circles around this. hgilbert (talk)

Not removed, moved: to the curriculum article. You know ... hypertext ... :-) Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 16:29, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

You mean a POV-fork? Anything neutral or positive about science education in the schools goes to the curriculum article, anything negative stays here? I don't think so. hgilbert (talk) 17:31, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, according to our new feelings on non peer-reviewed papers Jelinek & Sun is out (i.e.., it is a research monograph published by their department). We should only refer to it via third-party sources. This is why I am asking for some consistency in rules. I don't have the time or inclination to squabble over any pieces of true scholarship. Generally speaking, they are all credible enough sources to be used and what matters is how we use them. But, if this is what we are doing, then let's not be hypocrites and apply sentiment equitably. Jellypear (talk) 14:37, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

[Nielsen-1] Thomas William Nielsen, Rudolf Steiner's Pedagogy Of Imagination: A Case Study Of Holistic Education, Peter Lang Pub Inc 2004 ISBN 3-03910-342-3

[Nordlund-2] Carrie Y. Nordlund, "Art Experiences in Waldorf Education", Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Missouri-Columbia, May 2006

[3] Southworth, Cheryl Ridgeway, Geometry, fir trees and princes: Imaginative cognition in education, Ph.D. dissertation, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1988, 294 pages; AAT 8823477

[Dahlin-4] Bo Dahlin, The Waldorf School - Cultivating Humanity. Karlstad University Studies, 2007, p. 69

[Easton-5] Freda Easton, The Waldorf impulse in education:Schools as communities that educate the whole child by integrating artistic and academic work, Ph.D. thesis, Columbia University Teachers College, 1995

[EJO-6] Ogletree, Earl J., Creativity and Waldorf Education: A Study.

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