Steiner schools

REPORTER: Rodney Lohse

BROADCAST DATE: March 2, 2006

Steiner schools aim to give children a non competitive schooling experience. Today Tonight wanted to find out if it left students struggling in the outside world.

When Sue Allen saw the difference between a regular kindergarten and the alternative Steiner method, she said she knew right away she would send her daughters to the alternative school.

"The young child I think needs to learn on the move - not sitting - and that's one of the things I really noticed with this particular kindergarten compared to the others," Sue said.

They're called an alternative to the cut throat conventional education system. Now more popular than ever, with 75 schools across the country, they're being recognised by educators, even universities, for the first time.

Although the freedom to try new things was encouraged under the Steiner method, children are not taught to read or write until they were seven.

Education Professor John Sweller said there was no proof that to delay reading and writing was better for the child.

"If a child can learn to read and write at five years or less, there's no reason to delay it," Prof Sweller said.

"Everything depends on reading and writing. If you can't read and write, there's very little else you can do in a school system," he said.

"So you not only put reading and writing behind, you put everything else behind as well."

But Sue said there was too much competition, at too young an age, in mainstream schools.

"There's a really big push still in measuring what children do in terms of literacy and numeracy. Testing them at certain points and it just seems to be so pressured," she said.

Prof Sweller said he would prefer that educators prepared their students for the real world "and the real world is a competitive world.

Russell and Virginia Mock liked the non-competitive nature of Steiner schooling.

"There's a strong emphasis on the children succeeding on their own right more so than their success rated against how others in the class do or don't do," Russell said.

Virginia thought the education system was "very earthy, and wholistic."

"It teaches them a great reverence for the earth, and for their environment and an incredible respect for each other," she said.

"I actually don't think it's airy fairy when you've experienced it, it has very strong boundaries of the curriculum and how people treat each other, and how they go through their class day,"

The Mocks said the Steiner policy of having the same teacher right through primary school was a big advantage, and believed the school's emphasis on art and music had made their kids more rounded.

19 year old David plays the cello, enjoys footy, and was studying a Bachelor of Science at university despite not having sat Year 12 exams.

"I think we're at more of an advantage than a mainstream school ‘cause we had such low teacher to student ratios, that it was like private tuition," he said.

Steiner School Principal John Davison said the Steiner method offered parents an alternative.

"What we've tried to find is an alternative path to matriculation, to graduation," he said.

"A lot of people feel obliged to take what the state offers, and it's quite hard - it was for me as a parent - to see how can I do something different?"

Professor Sweller said letting children decide from a very young age what pace they want to learn at could mean they might not reach their potential.

The Professor was concerned the Steiner environment could produce kids not ready to face the big wide world, but Sue Allen and the Mocks disagreed.

"We've found our children and the children we know from other families that do eventually go out into the so-called big wide world, and then experienced the competition you're talking about, they seemed to get on just as fine," The Mocks said.

"Non-competitive learning I believe actually gives you a sense of self and improves your self-esteem so I actually think you're better prepared for the outside world," Sue said.