HOLYWOOD STEINER SCHOOL PRESS RELEASE

EMBARGOED UNTIL 0001 HRS, MONDAY 19 OCTOBER 2009

16 October 2009

DETOXING CHILDHOOD

Co-author of letter on Toxic Childhood praises Steiner education

Sue Palmer, author of Toxic Childhood, will be speaking today at Queen’s University, 19 October 2009. In attendance will be several parents from the Holywood Steiner School which for over 30 years has been delivering the international Steiner/Waldorf Curriculum.

            Stephanie Sim , a parent at the Steiner School said, “We must ask ourselves what kind of world do we live in and what do we want for our children. Steiner education is profoundly ecological, loving and nurturing – as well as effective. Today we are so focussed on exam results that we have forgotten that our first duty to  our children to give them unconditional love, to  keep the spirit of wonder and possibility alive,  as well as giving them a confidence they can use for the rest of their lives.” 

            The seminar, will be discussing the issue of formal education beginning at four is too early. It is being organised by the ARK Seminar series in Queens.

            “Steiner education begins formal education at seven,” explains Stephanie. “The curriculum believes that children are not ready to think in abstract at the age of four. Children at this age learn from imitation and have a need to feel secure.  The curriculum emphasises rhythm of each day, the seasons and year, laying the groundwork for a love of learning for the rest of their lives.”

            Co-author of the letter sent to the Times last year, Richard House, Senior Lecturer in the Research Centre for Therapeutic Education, Roehampton University (London), is also an early-years teacher at Britain’s newest Steiner school in Norwich, which he helped to establish.

            He says, “In Steiner (Waldorf) education, an ecological awareness is routinely intrinsic to everything we do, and to our deepest attitudes to the world and nature. Thus, for example, our communally shared songs and rhymes celebrate a deep reverence and respect for the natural world; and strongly ethical adult role models encourage children to learn that love and caring for our natural world is just something we routinely do, without question or fuss or self-satisfied affectation.

“Steiner education, then, along with other progressive educational and human-scale schooling approaches… actively models what an intrinsically ecological education will need to be like if environmental sustainability is to become a norm of our way of living and being, and not some short-term novelty which we can either embrace or discard as fashionable fancy takes us.”

The school is holding an Open Day for its pre-school (2 yrs 9mths -4 years) and Kindergarten (P1 & 2) on 24th October 2009 from 10 am – 12 pm. For more information go to www.holywood-steiner.co.uk or cemail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

ENDS