My Manifesto: The Incoherent Ramblings of a Madman

One of my friends is thinking about sending her daughter to Steiner education. There is something that worries me about this. While language acquisition has a few varied theories and schools of thought - whether you believe the Chomskian Universal Grammar, or the Piagetian/Vygotskian cognitive development strands - there is one thing that most of these theories have and that is a critical language acquisition period of anywhere from 7 to 15 years (approximately only - also depends on cognitive development) during the beginning of a child's life. Essentially the idea is that during the first 15 years of a child's life they learn language - if they are not exposed to it before the age of 15 they will never learn it properly.

The critical language acquisition period works in a similar way to second language acquisition. If you are exposed to the second language before 15 years of age you have much better chance of learning it rather than after 15 years. Before 15 years you have almost an innate (Chomsky) ability to learn without even trying - after 15 years you move more into cognitive learning (Piaget/Vygotksy) which relies more on your intelligence, that is, after 15 if you're damn damn smart and willing to give it a shot you will get by, however, conversely, if you are a bit of a fool you are screwed.

Now, Steiner education forges almost half of the critical language acquisition period as the following quote shows (see below). For seven (7) years they don't teach a child to read or write. The other ideas I have no problem with. It is the delaying of the language teaching that worries me. Have there ever been any proper independent studies on Steiner education? I am really interested to know whether or not it does affect a child's abilities later in life. Because, as I have said above, it seems as though they are forsaking half of a very critical period in a child's life for the sake of being artistic and "different" - and puting a child through that to prove a point seems a tad bit of a risk I would not be willing to take without something to back it up. Most of the studies I have seen have been run entirely by someone with a vested interest in Steiner - which is somewhat worrying. Steiner self regulating is as bad as the drug companies self regulating - and we would never let that happen now would we? :)

Here are some of its key points:

* Up to the age of seven encourage play, drawing, story telling, being at home, nature study and natural things.
* Do not teach children younger than seven to read.
* Teach a child to write before you teach them to read.
* Do not keep changing a child's teacher: allow one teacher to carry on teaching the same class for seven years.
* Allow children to concentrate on one subject at a time - do history two hours per day for several weeks and then do geography for two hours per day etc.
* Find links between art and science.
* Engage with the child and make sure that they are enthusiastic about the material being covered.
* Give a moral lead but do not teach a particular set of beliefs.
* Encourage learning for its own sake. Do not just work for exams.

(www.freedom-in-education.co.uk/Steiner.htm)