I really appreciate this article, and I believe it is accurate in every respect.

To the commentators, let me try to explain something that may be helpful. While Anthroposophy and Waldorf are cult-like in some aspects, I would not call them cults. Waldorf education like every other school system has its general strains of White normativity as well as pushes to become multi-cultural (which is occurring right now, again, in this national reckoning).

What Waldorf has that other schooling does not have is an inheritance of Anthroposophy. Anthroposophy, like its main parent Theosophy, is to some degree an ecumenical spirituality, and Steiner included several major cultures on the Eurasian continent in much of his paradigms and profferings. That being said, inclusion does not necessarily foreclose racist and orientalist approaches and categorizations, and Steiner, like other 19th Century anthropologists, readily traded in these canards.

The biggest hiccup, in my opinion, to this movement is the still transmitted articulation of Steiner’s infallibility. If that was done away with, much of the other dregs from his philosophy could be noted and nicked, as well as supporting an environment of steady criticism and, ironically, evolution.

That being said — the methods of Waldorf education are still poignant, in my opinion.