I mentioned to someone how I think there should be more hands-on learning in schools and he told me to look up Waldorf schools. Very interesting to say the least. Rudolf Steiner had very unique philosophies, some very weird or outright morally questionable, but some that I think were an appropriate reaction to the “thinking in the box” that is often dolled out in school.
The parts I agree with are that kids are taught engagement with crafts (eg, carving), music and creativity, an inquisitive exploration (reminds me of the Socratic approach), and an adaptive progression of subject matter that is based on the students’ individual levels. It reminds me a lot of the origins of the liberal arts being the skills a free person needed to engage the world, which included music and logic/rhetoric.
The parts I don’t really agree with are the pseudo-spirituality, the pseudo-science, and the racist parts of Steiner’s theory. I think I would need to do a thorough investigation of the specific school before I would consider sending my student there, but the philosophy definitely seems to meet some needs of students that are otherwise under-developed in the current school systems.
What are your thoughts?
I have to somewhat agree with the author. My experience and understanding of depression is that it is more of a (sometimes very persistent) symptom than an underlying cause. Ideally, we would all have the guidance to deal with depressing scenarios, but similar to dissociation during trauma, our mind defaults back to disconnection to limit the pain.
I’m not saying this is every case, but I do think as a society we could view depression more as a coping strategy, and try to replace it with healthier practices. After time, it takes more time and effort and support to replace those coping strategies, but that is essentially what psychotherapy does.
I think too often in the modern world people tend to just shrug and say “this is who I am,” instead of trying to improve their coping skills and quality of life. Like another commentor mentions, this becomes a feedback loop of depression feeding depression and takes immense support and effort to curve and should absolutely not be shamed.