Waldorf Problems

This essay is also available at

http://homepage.mac.com/nonlevitating/301.html

What is the path to recovery after a Waldorf "education"? Nowadays, there are support groups and services for Waldorf graduates and their parents, such as the Survivors List at People for Legal and Nonsectarian Schools (http://waldorfcritics.org). As far as I know, there was nothing of the sort in the dim, distant year of 1964, when I graduated from a Waldorf school. The upshot was that if I was going to get deprogrammed, I would have to do it myself. This, I think, is probably why it took so long.

I think that my essential nature is rationalist—but my essential nature was deeply buried, and almost obliterated, by my Waldorf schooling. When I graduated from Waldorf, I was truly directionless and befogged. Trying to figure out who I really was—trying to reconnect with my true nature—was a miserable, dark slog. It took me decades, literally. But eventually I started to see a little light.

The first step toward sanity (which is literally how I think of it: I left Waldorf insane, and only gradually did I become sane) was college. To my surprise, I loved college. It was an intellectual feast for one who had been intellectually starved. So, I started learning about the real world. I have always loved to read, and now I started reading sensible books, not C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, SCIENCE IS A SACRED COW, ON THE TRACK OF UNKNOWN ANIMALS, and all the other drek I was handed at Waldorf.

I don't want to sugarcoat anything or applaud myself. I say that I loved college. But it took me awhile even to figure that out (d'oh). I was not wholly a product of my Waldorf schooling, of course. Other factors influenced me: my family, my church (Lutheran), etc. Indeed, I had grown a bit skeptical of Waldorf during my final years there. Nonetheless, I emerged from Waldorf as if from a brainwashing experiment. If my mind had not been wholly captured, my imagination and desires had been. I yearned for things this world does not offer.

One consequence (for me and other Waldorf graduates) was a disinclination and an inability to lead a normal life, engaging in normal activities, seeking normal objectives... I was unfit for reality. I dropped out of the first college I attended. I was still so lost, I couldn't even begin to guess where my salvation lay. So I enrolled at another college, where I completed a single semester before dropping out again. I could have drifted away at the point and become, what? A wino? A drug addict? I don't know. But something had happened to me at that second college—I'd been exposed to a few examples of rationality and beauty—I'd taken psychology, and Shakespeare, and anthropology (that's "-logy," not "-sophy")—I'd gotten just enough exposure, I guess, to lead me to a third college. This third time stuck. I stayed right through graduation, becoming an "Honors Scholar" along the way, and winning a scholarship as reputedly the best English major. (This message is being brought to you by an uninterested member of Phi Beta Kappa.) But believe me, I was still a mess.
 

If I was a good student, that was (in a sense—the obfuscation Steiner so often employed) the pose I adopted so no one would see what a whacked-out screw-up I really was. Once or twice I tried to describe my Waldorf schooling to friends, but what I had to say was so inconceivable to them that I got very little benefit from the effort. I also tried psychiatry—I visited the college's shrink a few times—but again, there seemed to be no point. I couldn't articulate my confusion and pain, and the kind man who wanted to help me had no way of grasping what I had experienced during my childhood.

My "pose" as a good student was just about the only thing I had going for me. (Looking back, I don't think I had more than three or four dates in college, and they were all awkward, embarrassed exercises in mutual misunderstanding. I never dated the same girl twice, and my dates  occurred perhaps once per year. Cripes.) But I was a good student, and this actually was more than a pose. I loved learning so much that I went on to graduate school and then became a college prof. All the while, however, I still considered myself a romantic (in the Wordsworthian sense, not the Robert Redford), perhaps even a transcendentalist. I knew I wasn't a disciple of Steiner's. I'd tried to read a couple of his books, but they seemed to me arid and stupid. I knew, in fact, that they represented what I wanted to get away from. But still, I remained in many ways a specimen of Anthropop brainwashing. I was still in the clutches of a vague mysticism and a Waldorf-induced alienation from reality. Take a specific, Waldorf-weird example: My Waldorf's small library contained books on UFOs, abominable snowmen, and other fictitious phenomena, presented as if these phantoms actually existed. We students at Waldorf were encouraged to give credence to all manner of fabulous nonsense. Thus, I left Waldorf believing in UFOs. All during college and right up to the time I got tenure on an English faculty, I would scan the night skies looking for UFOs. And I saw some! Except, except...

My rational nature was slowly emerging, and I eventually realized that all I had seen were lights in the sky, which could have been anything. I never saw a flying disc, I never got abducted, I never met a little green man. I came to understand that I was fooling myself, wishing to see something so hard that I (almost) convinced myself that I had. But I hadn't.

So: Reading, mulling, doubting, trying to be honest with myself... You get the idea. I had to admit, eventually, that I could not defend any of my romantic, Waldorf-derived beliefs or attitudes. There was a severe mismatch between the real world, about which I was learning, and the visions I carried around in my head.

Discovering existentialism was a big step for me. The concept of authenticity. I eventually realized how inauthentic I was. So here was the most painful part: Gradually, one at a time, I had to throw away all my old, Waldorf-induced beliefs—I had to throw away a large portion of my very identity and try to build a new one, almost from scratch.

Stumbling across Zen Buddhism was also a big step. I am not an existentialist, nor am I a Buddhist of any stripe. But I was glad to get help from wherever I could find it. (I read I'M OK, YOU'RE OK (an embarrassing admission) and got some good out of it. The idea that I might be OK was a revelation.) So: Zen. I loved the parables and conundrums. Unlike sitting in church and being hectored by a hypocrite (sorry, sorry— I'm ok and the pastor's ok), in reading about Zen I found delightful, funny, and beneficial teachings. No doctrines. No unprovable claims about an afterlife or a jealous God who would punish me for eternity if I didn't happen to pick the one true religion out of the vast array on offer (and make the pick based on no evidence at all). No bullshit in Zen. Buddhism is therapeutic, and the underlying ethic is, if it works, if it lessens your suffering, do it; and if it doesn't work, stop.

My favorite Zen parable was and is the one about a goose egg that is placed inside a bottle. When the goose emerges from its shell and grows up, it is trapped inside the bottle. How do we rescue the poor goose? Zen master claps his hands and says, "The goose is out of the bottle!" Right on. Don't be where you don't want to be; get out, get on. Don't try to stop your suffering. Just stop suffering. Easier said than done, of course. But, still, I found this to be useful advice. Waldorf screwed you up? Get over it.

Another of my favorite Zen sayings is "Is your bowl dirty? Then clean it." Yes. If the situation is bad, change it. Don't hire someone to do it for you, don't buy a dishwasher—just clean your dirty bowl and stop whining.

So I made a little progress, slowly, haltingly. Ten years after Waldorf, I was still a secret loony. Fifteen years after Waldorf, I was walking around in the real world, but I felt it to be a very strange place—I was a misfit in almost all ways. Twenty years out—I guess that I can say I had more or less deprogrammed myself by then. But think of it. Twenty years after I was 18: I'm saying I can't claim to have become sane until I was approximately 38 years old. Cripes!

This, of course, is why I am now a Waldorf critic. It's why I have posted so many essays on the Web. I don't want anybody else to go through what I did. Not that I have any illusions about making a huge difference for anyone or anything. Nor do I think mine is the Saddest Story Ever Told. Billions of people have had, and now have, much harder lives than I've had. But if I can help one family, here or there, just a little, then I'll feel that perhaps I've made a contribution.

P.S. At just about the time I started my studies as a grad student, I met my future wife. (We’ve been together ever since—you do the math.) She was my invaluable partner in my efforts to de-Waldorf myself. She knew nothing about Waldorf, Steiner, or Anthroposophy. But for some reason she found worth in me, and her love gave me strength. I don’t know whether I would have made it without her. So, thank you, dearest. To my surprise, life can be good.