#exwaldi

[waldorfsurvivor]

I want to talk about L.K.

If you've done deep dives into Rudolf Steiner's philosophies you may have seen those initials. L.K was an elementary school girl who Steiner once spoke about.

He said of L.K. and kids like her "The girl L.K. in class 1...is one of those cases that are occurring more and more frequently where children are born and human forms exist which actually, with regard to the highest member the ego, are not human at all but are inhabited by beings who do not belong to the human race." He goes on to say that kids like L.K. are "not human beings at all but demons in human form."

Given some of the examples Steiner lists, it's an open secret in Waldorf/anthroposophy circles that he is talking about developmentally disabled children.

I am developmentally disabled. Autistic, specifically. A frequent trope invoked by parents of kids like me is that their real child was "stolen" and "replaced." The implication being that we aren't their real children, we're Something Else. Something not quite human, just like L.K.

Waldorf supporters will often claim that survivors take this quote out of context, that it's a metaphor and no one really thinks this is true.

But as a DD kid at a Waldorf school, it couldn't have been clearer that my teachers did believe it. (as an aside, even if it was a metaphor, it would still be disgusting and ableist and dehumanizing and demonstrate a deep hatred of disabled children)

For one thing, I was literally told this several times, that I was not human. That I was a monster. A demon. Not a person. That I had no soul. Because Steiner said so and he was "clairvoyant" so he must have been right. Because in a cult, you don't question shit like that.

The twisted, appropriative Waldorf take on "karma" was also at play. Other kids (the normal, human kids) were encouraged to either bully me or not interact with me at all, because being nice to me or even basically polite would hurt their "karma."

This was in the mid 2000s. Less than 20 years ago. They believe this. Don't ever let them try to tell you they don't.

[freethemall-blog1]

I opened this page years ago but did not use it much. Yet the testimonies keep coming up.

I was a former Waldorf mother and a believer in anthroposophy for five years.

The lack of transparency about the anthroposophical background is unfortunately still there, and everything that is done in schools has an anthroposophical reason.

You can find me on Twitter along with other critics and former Waldorfs

https://twitter.com/Rubino83927379?t=9jWkW-B2m82Eh6YX05Nhwg&s=09

[waldorfsurvivor]

A common thing I've heard from people talking about why they're drawn to Waldorf is that public schools use standardized, rigid metrics to evaluate students and Waldorf schools don't.

Except Waldorf schools do exactly that, just using different metrics.

While kids in U.S. public schools have to take the same standardized test, Waldorf students have to paint or draw the same picture, memorize and recite the same poem with the exact same inflection, play the same song on the recorder and do it perfectly. And doing "poorly" results in humiliation and judgement, just like in public school.

Public schools absolutely have a problem with expecting and enforcing conformity and sameness and not seeing students as individual people. But Waldorf schools have exactly the same problem. It just manifests itself in different ways.

[waldorfsurvivor]

Intro Post

You can call me Livvy. It's not my real name, but it'll do. I've been active on Tumblr for a while on a different account, but this little side project of mine started over on Twitter.

I attended a Waldorf school in the Midwest USA for four years, and recently decided it was time to start talking more publicly about it. This wasn't an easy decision because the last time I spoke out publicly, faculty from the school tracked me down and threatened me for it. But it's been years since I was a student there and I still break down in tears over what happened to me. My story matters and I'm going to tell it.

I don't have a solid plan or outline for how I'm going to do this, what I'm going to talk about when, or how much detail I plan on going into. It's more of a "I sporadically post whatever I feel like talking about" kind of thing.

[waldorfsurvivor]

Just want to remind everyone that attacking escapees and accusing them of making everything up is a standard cult tactic.

They know that they're doing and they're afraid of exposure. So they will do everything they can to silence the people whose lives they've ruined.