K-LGBTQ, and Why Education So Fails Children Nowadays.
Mostly because, I suggest, the Scottish Government is completely losing the plot!
What the hell's K-LGBTQ, you may well ask. In fact, it doesn't exist, other than the fact I've just made it up to cement a point that's very relevant. I'll come back to this a little later.
For now, though, I'll start by saying what a huge fan I am of Rudolph Steiner education. For those who don't know who Steiner was, well, he was an Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect, and esotericist born in 1861.
His studies as well as his interests were diverse, to say the least: artistic media, such as dance, drama and architecture led him to create the Goetheanum in Switzerland that's home to the world centre for the Anthroposophical society where, to this day teachers, farmers, doctors, therapists, and other professionals meet for conferences. Why this particular group of individuals in particular? Read on.
Steiner sought to find a synthesis between science and spirituality ("spiritual science")and worked on biodynamic agriculture and anthroposophical medicine that later in his life led to the founding of the School of Spiritual Science. The School, which was led by Steiner taught holistic education, with the intent of developing pupils intellectual, artistic, and practical skills, with a focus on imagination and creativity, performing arts (speech, drama and music) the literary arts and humanities, mathematics, astronomy, science, and visual arts, social sciences, youth and agriculture, as well as meditative exercises.
After the First World War, Steiner founded a number of schools, the first of which was known as the Waldorf School, which later evolved into a worldwide school network. In addition to this, he also founded a system of organic agriculture, now known as biodynamic agriculture, which was one of the first forms of organic farming and is still much used to date in terms of sowing, weeding, and harvesting to utilise the influences on plant growth by the moon, because in the presence of light plants direct their growth toward the light. Whereas, at night plants growth is unaffected by the daytime tendency to reach for the light and energy resources focused on photosynthesis, and grow taller by avoiding heat stress and water loss.
So, how does this all come together in terms of the modern education system in Britain?
According to The Steiner philosophy, the human being is a threefold being of spirit, soul and body whose capabilities unfold in three developmental stages on the path to adulthood: early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence. During this, the child will benefit from physical, emotional, spiritual and cognitive development at their own pace and time. Children are encouraged to make choices and find their own ways of learning in free and creative play in which they develop social skills and empathy, of which the first seven years of this pathway are crucial.
During these early years while the children’s brains are still developing the focus is on creative play, and within this they will learn the coordination of the limb system and development of the senses and nervous system, while also being taught about what is heard, felt and experienced, as the major impetus for the development of being able to follow a decision or action to completion, in order to solve problems, use imagination and develop creative play that is later required to achieve literacy, numeracy, creative thinking and self-actualisation in adulthood.
From seven to fourteen years of age, children are able to create mental pictures and interpret the word through feeling, and at around the age of fourteen and the onset of puberty, they are taught to develop a capacity for abstract thinking. Until seven their education totally revolves around how to learn in creative ways that both prepare young minds to slowly open up to higher levels of learning to what will become the more formal, statutory curriculum, as well as allowing the natural development and awareness of feelings, realising they are distinct from others and, as such, they begin to consider the feelings of others.
Steiner also stated that sex education should not be discussed in schools. He believed that these topics "take their course below the surface of conscious life" and are not topics for the classroom. He further stated, "The worst possible way of dealing with sexual impulses, however, is to talk a lot about these things, especially with the children themselves, and to put all kinds of theoretical ideas in their heads."
Furthermore, Steiner posits, what educators should do is awaken in the child at a young age a feeling for beauty. He states, "When you lead children to feel the beauty and the glory of sunrise and sunset, to be sensitive to the beauty of flowers and to the majesty of thunder and lightning, when, in short, you develop them in the aesthetic sense, you are doing far more for them than if you were to give them the sex education which it has now become customary to give children at the earliest age and which is often carried to absurd lengths."
Steiner's methodology for slowly introducing the subject of sex education more naturally and creatively is to look at aspects of the natural world, in which children are guided towards continually heightening their building blocks of learning, and how the complex ways in which gender functions within the animal kingdom. Many worms, for instance, are hermaphroditic, while there are genders of frogs it is determined not by genes, but by the temperature at which the egg develops. Other examples explore the plant world. What these developing young minds are not thrown into is human sexuality as if they were far older in age.
It's important to recognise that when a child is of a very young age with so much to learn about the world around them as it is, so, the very idea of prompting them to compartmentalise themselves by a label is clearly absurd as it is confusing when being taught how to carry the baggage labels of adults with their own sex and gender ideology. It's perfectly fine to raise awareness in children nowadays, and I don't believe for one moment that anyone would put forward a counterargument to this. What concerns me is that children are being almost force-fed information to the point they become kidults before being allowed to slowly make their way up the travelator of growth into adults. Everything about education in the wider scope nowadays appears to be a production line, and, if you've ever seen the Pink Floyd music video for 'Another Brick in the Wall' you'll know exactly where I'm coming from.
So why, oh why, therefore, does the Scottish government feel the need to introduce some quite frankly, barking mad idea whereby Scottish primary schools have recently appointed 'LGBT champions' to engage with students as young as 4 years old about their sexuality, including whether they identify as gay, lesbian, or transgender? They are FOUR YEARS OLD!
Just allow them to be children, and to laugh and play, and DO NOT allow this insane idea of indoctrination to continue. While Steiner wasn't in any way dismissive of issues relating to gender, sexuality, or other matters to do with sex education overall, he did at least promote allowing children to be children as a tenet of his teachings.
Oh, and if you’re still wondering where the ‘K’ of KLGBT comes from, it’s ‘Kids’.
From the author of ‘The Sexual Philanthropist’ published on Amazon/Kindle -https://amzn.to/3TzI5AQ