The Cult of Waldorf Schools

Summary

Sounds Like A Cult: The Cult of Waldorf Schools
Released on February 18, 2025
Host: Amanda Montell | Co-Hosts: Chelsea Charles and Reese Oliver
Guest: Maggie Smith, Former Waldorf Teacher

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Introduction

In this engaging episode of Sounds Like A Cult, Amanda Montell and co-host Reese Oliver delve into the intriguing world of Waldorf Schools, questioning whether these esteemed educational institutions harbor cult-like characteristics. With over 1,200 Waldorf institutions worldwide, the podcast seeks to uncover the layers beneath their holistic, arts-infused approach to learning.

Background on Waldorf Schools

Waldorf Schools, founded in the 1920s by Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner, promise a unique educational experience rooted in Anthroposophy—a blend of creative expression, delayed academics, and spiritual philosophies. Amanda Montell describes Anthroposophy as “a spiritual scientific philosophy” aimed at bridging the gap between science and spirituality (Transcript [05:56]).

Cult-Like Aspects of Waldorf Education

While Waldorf Schools appear idyllic, offering students activities like hand-drawing lesson books and participating in Eurythmy (a movement art developed by Steiner), critics argue that underlying practices may be cult-like. Notable concerns include:

• Dogmatic Methodologies: Waldorf advocates passionately defend their system, claiming it nurtures lifelong learning and the soul. Critics point out the rigidity and adherence to Steiner's esoteric ideas as red flags (Transcript [05:25]).

• Technological Isolation: Waldorf Schools notoriously exclude modern technology from classrooms. Maggie Smith notes, “Absolutely no technology, no screens, no phones, no computers,” which is rare in contemporary education (Transcript [11:12]).

• Spiritual Overtones: The curriculum emphasizes spiritual development, with practices like meditative exercises focused on objects (e.g., a pencil) to align body and spirit. Reese Oliver shares her discomfort with these exercises, feeling they contradicted modern scientific understanding (Transcript [29:38]).

Interview with Maggie Smith: A Former Waldorf Teacher

Introduction of the Guest
At [20:52], Maggie Smith joins the conversation as a former Waldorf teacher with a Master's in Waldorf education. She shares her journey from being a student in a Waldorf School to becoming an educator and eventually being fired from her position.

Personal Journey and Realizations
Maggie recounts her early positive experiences, describing Waldorf education as magical and holistic. However, during her teacher training, discrepancies emerged:

• Unexpected Spiritual Emphasis: She anticipated an academic exploration of Steiner's philosophies but found herself expected to embrace Anthroposophy wholeheartedly. When she questioned ideas contradicted by modern science, she was dismissed with affirmations of Steiner’s spiritual discoveries ([Reese Oliver, 03:04]).

• Racist Underpinnings: Maggie highlights Steiner's controversial beliefs, including racial hierarchies and the concept that certain races are spiritually superior, which institutions now actively distance themselves from ([Montell, 15:08]).

Cultural and Structural Concerns
Maggie sheds light on the controlled environment within Waldorf classrooms:

• Conformity and Hierarchies: Teachers maintain long-term relationships with the same group of students, fostering tight-knit communities but also potential power imbalances. Activities often require conformity, such as copying drawings uniformly ([Reese Oliver, 03:04], [37:42]).

• Dress Codes and Environmental Control: Classrooms feature color-coded schemes, natural materials, and specific decor to create a nurturing atmosphere. Strict dress codes prohibit logos and popular media influences, promoting an environment aimed at fostering imagination over external influences ([Reese Oliver, 41:14]).

Exit Experience and Aftermath
Maggie details her exit from the Waldorf system:

• Firing Without Support: She was dismissed after struggling with teaching high-need students, without any supportive interventions. The school's response was dismissive, shifting responsibility to spiritual solutions like “talking to your angels” ([Reese Oliver, 48:40]).

• Career Transition: Post-Waldorf, Maggie found fulfillment as a baker, contrasting the restrictive environment of teaching ([Reese Oliver, 57:58]).

Conclusion: Is Waldorf a Cult?

The episode juxtaposes the charming aspects of Waldorf education with the concerning practices that may align with cult-like behavior. While Waldorf Schools offer a creative and immersive educational experience, the rigid adherence to Steiner's philosophies, control over curriculum and environment, and the challenges faced by those exiting the system raise valid concerns.

Notable Quotes:

• "Anthroposophy was going to bridge the gap between science and spirituality... If that's not a culty mission statement, I don't know what is." — Amanda Montell (07:49)

• "When I started teaching, I asked my mentor... how do we know that what Steiner was writing was true?... 'oh, well, if you do the spiritual exercises that he laid out, then you'll see the truth.'" — Reese Oliver (30:07)

• "Another cult tastic anecdote... teachers checked every box believing they had ascended through all the races." — Maggie Smith (15:34)

Final Thoughts

Amanda Montell and Reese Oliver conclude that while Waldorf Schools have admirable elements, the potential for a controlling, cult-like environment cannot be overlooked. The episode invites listeners to critically assess the balance between holistic education and the preservation of individual autonomy within such institutions.

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Transcript

[Amanda Montel]

The views expressed on this episode, as with all episodes of Sounds Like a Cult, are solely host opinions and quoted allegations. The content here should not be taken as indisputable fact. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only.

[Reese Oliver]

Sometimes these ideas would come up that essentially are refuted by modern science stuff that's like, well, science has kind of closed the book on this. That's not how it works. And we'd be told like, oh, no, no, this is true. This is what Rudolf Steiner discovered through his own spiritual scientific studies.

[Amanda Montel]

This whole thing is reminding me so very much of Scientology.

[Reese Oliver]

But anthroposophi are very, very quick to say it is not a religion. And also anti pacifists are not dogmatic because Rudolf Steiner said that we shouldn't be dogmatic and therefore we're not dogmatic.

[Maggie Smith]

Well, in that case, this is Sounds.

[Amanda Montel]

Like a Cult, a show about the modern day cults we all follow. I'm Amanda Montel, author of the books Cultish and the Age of Magical Overthinking.

[Maggie Smith]

And I'm Reese Oliver. Sounds like a cult's coordinator. Every week on this show we discuss a different fanatical fringe group from the cultural zeitgeist from Amazon to wine moms to try and answer the big question.

[Amanda Montel]

This group sounds like a cult. But is it really? And if so, which of our three cult categories does it fall into? A liquor life, a watch your back, or a get the fuck culture out? Because cults these days don't always look like the Manson style compounds that you might picture cults, or at least cult y organizations in 2025 might look like, I don't know, a bougie hippie school that has some fringy little practices and a low key sinister origin story. Yes, culties. We're finally covering Waldorf schools. Okay, on Sounds Like a Cult. Over the years, we've talked about a lot of different schools. We've talked about Montessori schools, homeschooling. I feel like this really completes that trifecta. There are so many culty corners of education. And here we are at the Waldorf episode at long last.

[Maggie Smith]

Yes, we have made it. You have all been frothing at the mouth, chomping at the bit, banging down our doors, and we have said, fine, sharpening your pencils.

[Amanda Montel]

Are they even allowed to have weapons like that?

[Maggie Smith]

No, no, no, no. They are prepping their watercolors. Stick around, because we will be interviewing a former Waldorf cult educator. She is this absolutely lovely, adorable, most fantastical woman named Maggie, who was actually kicked out of the cult against her will Talk about exit cost Some juicy.

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[Maggie Smith]

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[Amanda Montel]

We set up this topic and get everyone on the same page with regard to why Waldorf Schools are more than just a school system, First Reese, I gotta know what was your impression of Waldorf schools or Waldorf kids if you had one before we started working on this episode?

[Maggie Smith]

Bad co host alert. I had literally never heard of this.

[Amanda Montel]

Oh no. I love that. I love when one of us has never even heard of something.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah, and I feel like I'm usually pretty finger on the pulse about things like this.

[Amanda Montel]

It's true.

[Maggie Smith]

I had been like Waldorf school. That sounds intriguing.

[Amanda Montel]

I mean, now that I think about it, Waldorf schools are distinctly offline. Like even in the research process for this episode, all of the sources sources that I found were on these like very geocities looking blogs from like 2007.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah, I was translating some Goethe from some really outdated Ms. Paint web pages and I had a blast doing it because that's how you know you're in a really good cult when they don't have someone who's entrenched in the real world enough to be up to current graphic design standards. Like that's how you know it's good.

[Amanda Montel]

So true. Yeah, this is what I have to respect about Waldorf. They're really not instilling the value of Canva and TikTok and their employees or alumni. And so it's actually weirdly hard to learn about Waldorf. Which is why we were so blessed to have Maggie willing to spill her guts for the Purposes of this show. My only exposure to Waldorf was that there was a kid at my theater camp who went to a Waldorf school and there was this sort of wealthy, but of the earth at the same time glow to this person.

[Maggie Smith]

It's giving, like, enlightenment era vibes.

[Amanda Montel]

There was something almost elfin about this person. Like they just seemed like they were from another realm.

[Maggie Smith]

A realm that we are diving into today. With over 1200 institutions worldwide, Waldorf education promises a holistic arts infused approach to learning that sounds idyllic. Students knitting scarves in class, skipping screens for you is me. And diving into fairy tales before phonics. But beneath the dreamy exterior, there's a mystique and rigidity that has some parents whispering, is this a school or a spiritual movement?

[Amanda Montel]

Fairy tales before phonics. I love that. I could always use more fairy tales, but more like, alongside phonics. So here's just a little bit of background for those like Rhys, who think that Waldorf is just a salad. So Waldorf schools were founded in the 1920s. All right, picture it. A glamorous era. The hemlines are short, the haircuts are even shorter. Alcohol is illegal. And an Austrian philosopher named Rudolf Steiner is rearing to start a cult. Waldorf education is rooted in the teachings of this dude named Rudolf Steiner, whose philosophy blends creative expression, allegedly delayed academics, and even astrology. He was really hodgepodging all of his favorite pastimes into one. One of the elements that makes Waldorf so culty, in my opinion, is how steadfastly its advocates will defend it, evangelize about it. Waldorf parents are balls to the wall. And these loyalists claim that Waldorf education is superior to all others, that it inspires lifelong learning and nurtures the soul. But for every loyalist there is a skeptic. They point to its dogmatic methodologies, Waldorf's reluctance to embrace modern technology. I mean, these kids don't even know how to use Canva. And the founder Steiner's esoteric ideas, they call them red flags. And so that really begs the question, like, is this educational utopia of sorts, full of elfin folktale hearing sweetie pies, a haven for creative minds? Are we being overdramatic and kind of like jumping on a bandwagon that shouldn't exist, calling it a cult? Or is it actually beneath the surface, cultivating a kind of groupthink that is increasingly threatening? As there are so many people in our society right now who want to reject wholesale modern technology, modern science, and modern medicine, we're going to get into this later. But this word that you're going to have to learn over the course of this conversation with Maggie is the word Anthroposophy. Anthroposophy is the philosophy that is really at the core of what makes a Waldorf school a Waldorf school. And it is this sort of spiritual way of thought developed by Steiner, who, look, I love a $10 word, but Jesus my guy, Anthroposophy. It's like putting lipstick on a pig of a bad idea. Just give it a long ass name. And basically the idea behind this was that Anthroposophy was going to bridge the gap between science and spirituality. It aimed to understand understand the spiritual dimensions of human life, nature and the universe through conscious inner development for children. Now if that's not a culty mission statement, I don't know what is.

[Maggie Smith]

I don't know that there's much cultier things than wanting to teach children how to understand the spiritual dimensions of their human life before you like acclimate them to phonics and like counting one through 10. So in order to get a bit of an idea of how this Anthroposophy manifests in a Waldorf setting, let's first take a step inside the classroom, shall we? Let's see what our surroundings are in these little elven havens. So students create their own hand drawn and written main lesson books instead of using standard textbooks. They also participate in Eurythmy.

[Amanda Montel]

What the fuck? I get a really evil feeling in my body when I see the way that this word is spelled. It has too many Y's.

[Maggie Smith]

It's giving very like when you read about the origins of theater and like the Bacchae and all of their cultish rituals, like that's very much what this word phonetically is evoking for me.

[Amanda Montel]

Yeah, it feels like the name of like a villainous character in a Shakespeare play. Looks like a great Scrabble word though, if it's even acknowledged by the Scrabble dictionary.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah, for the kids at home, that's E U R Y T H M Y.

[Amanda Montel]

No, I hate her.

[Maggie Smith]

You're with me. She is a set of activities created by Rudolf Steiner wherein children use dance like gestures express sounds, words, emotions, and it's believed to align body and spirit. Other similar things you will see in Waldorf schools, lots of oral storytelling, lots of fairy tales, myths, legends. Who cares about reading and writing? Just delay it. We need to focus on the oral language. We need to paint a little bit.

[Amanda Montel]

We'll draw honestly, these little Wheens Sound well set up for a career in podcasting.

[Maggie Smith]

Honestly, just if you can yap and throw a party. Okay. Steiner loves him a party. He loves a good festival. And there are many of them in Waldorf schools. We've got Michaelmas, we've got May Day. But we'll hear a little bit from Maggie how these festivals are getting, I don't know, how should I say it? Deluded. I guess they're trying to hide their cultishness more.

[Amanda Montel]

Yeah, all of this sounds really quaint, but what are some other rituals and practices that Waldorf engages in that may look innocent on the outside but upon closer look aren't so numero uno is.

[Maggie Smith]

Absolutely no technology, no screens, no phones, no computers, which I feel like that's not standard in classrooms. But to not even have them be used as an educational tool is pretty rare, especially considering the volume of students that teachers have to teach. And oftentimes I feel like technology serves as an aid to them in that way that Waldorf schools are essentially opting out of, which I find really interesting.

[Amanda Montel]

There is a lot of polarization and debate and fear, much of which is super valid, surrounding technological advancement in the classroom right now. Like, I can see a version of myself becoming something akin to radicalized by a Waldorf esque approach just due to the horrors that I feel in my bones about AI in the classroom. Chatgpt getting in the way of students. And then of course there are all the counter arguments about how like, technological advancement has always been demonized and how my use of a thesaurus would be blasphemous to someone living 300 years ago when he had to write books without thesauri. There is something particularly foreboding about the unpredictability of digital technology and the fact that Waldorf has a long history of being against that, being in favor of practices like, you know, learning by sword, song learning by putting on plays, being tied to nature and spirituality skills like knitting and sewing and woodworking and gardening. It reminds me of why tradwifery is taking off in such a big way right now, honestly, like across the political spectrum, because there's just so much fear surrounding digital technology and AI and its potential effects on little kids. So I can see how like two extremes are bad and Waldorf might be erring on the opposite, culty extreme.

[Maggie Smith]

So all of this sounds like super cute and fun. As an art school alum, it doesn't sound too dissimilar from my own high school experience. Honestly, I feel like my teachers had a lot of classroom decor and practices that kind of align with some of what we've been hearing about. So like, what's exactly the problem to your point?

[Amanda Montel]

The sort of like paper mache your feelings instead of writing a book report vibe doesn't seem all that objectionable or fringy. But what differentiates Waldorf schools, maybe from the art school that you attended, has so very much to do with Steiner himself and the way that he institutionalized his own biases, prejudices and woo woo antics in a way that lives on within Waldorf schools to this day. So one of the many blogs we came across that helped inform us for this episode today was called Helpful Professor.com and we learned from Helpful Professor.com that at least in the UK Steiner students tend to have very low vaccination rates. And this might be due to the institutionalized Waldorf belief in the quote, natural child having a God given immune system and that child illnesses could actually be the result of karma. Talk about a new aging mishmash and bastardization of time honored eastern practices. Karma was a notion that Steiner kind of weaponized within Waldorf schools to defend all kinds of culty shenanigans. And Steiner personally was a racist. He pointed out what he believed to be inherent differences among races kind of at every turn. He believed that races inherently belonged to a specific geographical location and even proposed a racial hierarchy where reincarnation into a higher race reflected good karma. So to make the claim that these origins are not only culty but fascistic is really not an overstatement here.

[Maggie Smith]

Not at all. Another cult tastic anecdote in a BBC article titled why are Steiner Schools so Controversial? Discussed an incident at a private UK Waldorf school where at a diversity training day, four white teachers, when asked to check a box giving their ethnicity, checked every box believing that they had, quote unquote, ascended through all the races. I don't even know where to go from there.

[Amanda Montel]

Yeah. So I'm sure that there are plenty of Waldorf parents for whom their local Waldorf school seemed like the best option. And again, their marketing and their optics are so sort of pleasantvillized that if you're not on high alert for cultishness, you might not discover this sordid past. But the institution itself does know about it. And apparently the Steiner Waldorf school's fellowship, which is this kind of like centralized leadership, was allegedly horrified to learn about this incident of race transcendence. And most schools do actively try to distance themselves from those particular Steiner philosophies. That said, there is just something very scary about the places that this concept of karma could allow certain followers to go. I also found some other message boards and blogs like this one titled why Waldorf Bullies on the Waldorf Review that spoke of it's just like very odd overall ethos surrounding karma and how it can actually be pretty detrimental when it comes to discussions of bullying. Just because there seems to be this idea within Waldorf schools that students need to work through their karmic experiences which potentially results in less intervention from educators when bullying occurs. So that's just kind of like a way to frame how a single seemingly innocent or positive tenet could actually be used as a weapon against kids.

[Maggie Smith]

I don't know. Not having to necessarily interfere in your students interactions with other students seems very convenient for Waldorf educators in the same way that Aryan people happening to be the superior race is very convenient for Rudolf Steiner, if you catch my drift. What intrigues me so much about Waldorf schools is the way that these people in power are able to frame these practices that are so clearly for their own benefit as this safe haven for people that are genuinely really worried about the state of the world as it exists today.

[Amanda Montel]

Yeah, no, again, culty red flag. Taking advantage of people's fears and vulnerabilities. That does seem to be a little bit of what's going on here, or at least what was going on in a big way in Steiner's day. It just doesn't sit right. And I mean, whenever you have Westerners creating a dogmatic ideology and like throwing chatter of karma into the mix, it instantly gives me the heebie jeebies.

[Maggie Smith]

I can't imagine getting bullied by some little snot nosed kid on the playground. And then your teacher is like karma, like I am 6 years old.

[Amanda Montel]

Seriously.

[Maggie Smith]

Our guest today is a former Waldorf teacher. She has her Master's in Waldorf education and she has definitely received the full indoctrination in her training. After parting ways with the school, which in itself is a juicy story that she will tell you later, she couldn't help but think, did I just escape a cult? We are so excited to share our conversation with Maggie Smith.

[Amanda Montel]

If you are listening to and even enjoying this episode of the podcast and want to go deeper, I have a book recommendation for you. This is your host, Amanda by the way, and the book is called the Age of Magical Overthinking and I wrote it. I poured my heart into this book and I really think you might like it. It's about delusion and obsession in the information age and how the ways in which our minds naturally work are clashing with our current culture. Every chapter explores some confounding irrationality from contemporary society, including extreme cycles of celebrity worship and dethronement, mass embrace of Instagram manifestation gurus during times of crisis, and why our bodies sometimes enter literal fight or flight in response to something as objectively non threatening as a curt email from a co worker. The book blends social science with pop culture analysis and personal stories. And if you prefer audiobooks, I recorded mine myself. So it's kind of like an extension of the podcast. Again, the book is called the Age of Magical Notes on Modern Irrationality and it's available wherever books are sold, your local indie bookstore, bookshop.org, barnes & Noble, or even that one massive online book retailer run by a cult leader. You know the one. So if you enjoy this podcast, I really hope you'll consider checking out the.

[Reese Oliver]

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[Amanda Montel]

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[Reese Oliver]

Show, you can Venmo that.

[Amanda Montel]

Visit Venmo Me Debit to learn more. The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp bank and a pursuant to license by Master MasterCard International Incorporated card may be used everywhere. MasterCard is accepted. Venmo purchase restrictions apply. Maggie, thank you so much for joining. Sounds like a cult.

[Maggie Smith]

Could you introduce yourself to our listeners and talk a little bit about why you were inspired to talk about Waldorf schooling through the lens of a cult?

[Reese Oliver]

So my name is Maggie. I'm a former Waldorf teacher. I have a Master's in Education with a focus on Waldorf education from Unaccredited University that does all sorts of other programs unrelated to Waldorf. And I have taught and interned and spent time at several different Waldorf schools around the Northeast. So from about when I started my teacher training and through the time that I was spending in schools, I kept having these experiences that was not 100% what I expected. I wasn't always really able to confront it at the time. And like looking back, there were a lot more things that kind of made me sit up and take notice. I was in my early mid-20s at the time. It's something that, particularly now that I've been out of it for quite some time, has been had vibes that can feel pretty culty when you're in it and when you're looking back at it. And I know that there's a lot out there of, you know, people saying, like, oh, Waldorf schools are a cult. So I'm very happy to be able to contribute to this conversation and provide my own perspective.

[Amanda Montel]

Well, thank you for being here because it wasn't easy finding someone over the years who would be willing to chat about Waldorf schools. I don't know, I think, like, this is sort of an entertainment podcast and it's fun to make. And so many of the subjects that we cover are fairly light hearted. Trader Joe's, Dance Moms, I mean, and then Synanon.

[Reese Oliver]

So, you know, and then there's Synanon.

[Amanda Montel]

Right, exactly. So that juxtaposition of light and dark. Really grateful for you being willing to take that journey with us.

[Maggie Smith]

So I'd like to zoom in a little bit more towards you. Could you tell us your personal journey within Waldorf schools? What drew you to the institution and how did those cult y red flags really first start to unfold for you?

[Reese Oliver]

Absolutely. So I was actually a Waldorf student. I attended a Waldorf school in my hometown for grades seven and eight. And for me, that was a really pivotal time because I'd had kind of a miserable year at the public middle school.

[Amanda Montel]

Middle school is a wonderful time to join a cult. Like, what a miserable era.

[Reese Oliver]

And it's interesting because for Waldorf school lifers, seventh and eighth grade is when they're starting to get really sick of it and they want to join the real world. But for me, entering at that time, I was just like, this is amazing. This is so magical in that environment. And so went through public high school, college, trying to decide what to do with my life. Attended little after school program for some kids at a local Waldorf school. And I was like, oh, maybe this is something that I could do. Very frequently, a prerequisite for doing a Waldorf teacher training program is something called Foundation Studies, which is up to like a couple years spent meeting in a group and reading Rudolf Steiner's foundational anthroposophic texts such as Philosophy of Freedom, how to Know Higher Worlds. I didn't feel like spending two years doing that, so I kind of fast tracked it. Reading the books with a friend of Ours, who was herself a former Waldorf teacher.

[Amanda Montel]

Okay, so let's talk more about this one major cult. Red flag is this idea of false promises or love bombing and then kind of bait and switching recruits. Right. So on that note, you did mention in your email to us that in teacher training, you thought you would study the spiritual science created by Steiner from this academic perspective to understand the philosophy from which Waldorf education was. Was born, but it was not made clear that you would be studying as if you believed it yourselves and as if it were a philosophy that you, as teachers in training, ascribe to.

[Maggie Smith]

Could you tell us more about how your expectations of Waldorf training differed from reality?

[Reese Oliver]

Absolutely. I sort of had an idea in my head going into this training program that we would be approaching it kind of from an academic perspective. You know, not unlike reading the Bible in a humanities class. You're reading it as an academic document. I assume that we would be reading these to kind of understand the philosophical background, background of Waldorf education. What I didn't expect and what was actually going on was that we were studying them as anthroposophists. So it felt that there was this implicit expectation that we were reading these spiritual scientific ideas that had been laid out by Rudolf Steiner, and that we believed them in our discussions for them, and that we all understood that if we did the meditative exercises that he described, then, you know, we too would. Would see the truth in what he was describing in how to, you know, attain this higher spiritual scientific knowledge. And as someone who's always been pretty skeptical, that really threw me for a loop. And I really struggled with that in my training program, because sometimes these ideas would come up that essentially are refuted by modern science. And when somebody in the discussion would kind of push back on that idea a little bit, we'd be told like, oh, no, no, this is true. This is what, you know, Rudolf Steiner discovered this knowledge through his. His own spiritual scientific studies. And so we know that this is true, what he's saying. That was very unexpected and very unsettling to me, and I really felt very out of place just because I knew at my core that I didn't believe this. And I was. I was willing to learn about it and discuss it in order to have a better grasp of Waldorf education, but it never resonated with me as a philosophical path that I wanted to adopt for my own life.

[Amanda Montel]

This whole thing is reminding me so very much of Scientology. The fact that it's this, like, 20th century new religious movement that predicted purports to be sort of science flavored, but.

[Reese Oliver]

It'S not a religion. Anthroposophists are very, very quick to say it is not a religion. There's not like one spiritual leader. You're not worshiping any kind of God or deity. It's a spiritual, scientific philosophy. And also, anthroposophists are not dogmatic because Rudolf Steiner said that we shouldn't be dogmatic and therefore we're not dogmatic.

[Maggie Smith]

Well, in that case, yeah, I mean.

[Amanda Montel]

I was just thinking, as you were speaking, when you're like, like fresh out of college or a few years out of college and you're trying to figure out what it is that you want to do, because there's so much pressure for what you do to be who you are and what you believe in. And Waldorf schools are promising to involve you in this tight community that is uplifting the next generation that is really, really compelling. And I can imagine that those who were not maybe as interested in reading text texts critically, who are maybe even more vulnerable to reading texts cultishly, they would be hella susceptible. But specifically, the flavor here is very much like science meets spirituality in a way that is really giving Scientology, because L. Ron Hubbard loved to appropriate terminology from software engineering and chemistry and linguistics, even to make it seem like he was tapped into a wisdom higher than science and higher than plain old religion.

[Reese Oliver]

And that's very true of Anthroposophy as well, because it incorporates and, like, very openly and kind of by default incorporates a lot of ideas from Buddhism and eastern religion. There's concepts of reincarnation. Christ and Buddha are both like figures within anthroposophy, kind of as teachers without necessarily being religious figures. So there's a lot going on there as well. Of a similar vein.

[Amanda Montel]

Wow.

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[Amanda Montel]

So to continue talking about Steiner and his wackadoodlery a bit more, could you explain Rudolf Steiner in the context of being a cult leader of sorts of. From your point of view, opinion, Allegedly. And any specific teachings of his that you felt pressure to incorporate but ultimately felt like would not be productive or helpful to students? Development.

[Reese Oliver]

Sure. So there is this, like, detailed set of spiritual exercises that Steiner laid out that are like various meditations focusing on something in your environment. An example being a pencil. And you just sort of study that object with as much detail as you can as a way to, like, learn everything about it simply by meditating on it. So that's like, the very first one, and there's kind of steps going up from there. I don't remember there being the expectation that we ourselves would do these exercises in my training program. I feel like it was probably implicitly encouraged. I have tried meditating so many times throughout my life. I have tried individual meditation. I've tried group meditation. I've tried guided meditation. I've tried walking meditation.

[Amanda Montel]

Oh, my God, Maggie. I say this all the time. I'm always just like, once I master meditation, it's over for you. B. Like, I will.

[Reese Oliver]

It's impossible. And so it's like, it's almost like as soon as I knew that there was meditation involved, I was like, well, I will not be doing that. I'm like, sorry, y'. All. Not for me. So that was right on the outside. Something that I honestly didn't feel like was accessible to me, just because it's not a type of consciousness that I've ever been able to attain. When I was teaching, I asked my mentor, who was an older and more experienced teacher, I remember asking kind of like, like, how do we know that what Steiner was writing was true? And the answer that I got when I asked questions like that was like, oh, well, if you do the spiritual exercises that he laid out, then you'll see the truth. And he got these ideas through doing these meditations and doing this spiritual scientific.

[Amanda Montel]

Research, thought terminating, freaking cliche. For those listening, I just want to clarify one of the, like, key aspects of cultish language, a key linguistic cult leader tactic that we talk about on the show a ton and that I write about my book. Cultish is the thought terminating cliche, which is a stock expression that's easily memorized, easily repeated, and aimed at shutting down independent thinking, questioning, or pushback in a Cult. So there you freaking have it.

[Reese Oliver]

So where Steiner was coming from is that he started out, end of the 19th, early 20th century, as part of the Theosophical movement, which was kind of an occult sort of movement. But it had to do with a lot of similar ideas that he went on to prescribe in Anthroposophy in terms of the spiritual world and I think reincarnation. And this isn't something that I learned until long I left Waldorf teaching. But, yeah, Steiner had this idea that Africans were at the kind of lowest stage of spiritual development. They were kind of stuck in a kind of a spiritual childhood. East Asians and South Asian peoples were kind of a spiritual adolescence. And through reincarnation, an African person could hope to be reincarnated as an Asian person, who could hope to be reincarnated as a European person who is finally at that, like, quote, unquote, adult stage of spiritual development. Any Waldorf school that acknowledges that Rudolf Steiner wrote about this and spoke about this will absolutely, completely condemn it will say that we do not ascribe to this. We don't believe that, you know, Rudolf Steiner was correct in saying this. And it's that kind of situation of picking and choosing which aspects of the philosophy you choose to believe are true and not.

[Amanda Montel]

But it's not a religion, and we're not dogmatic, right?

[Reese Oliver]

And he eventually left the theosophical movement. Now, this is something that has a lot of debate in the modern anthroposophical circles and Moldorf schools, but it would appear that part of what caused him to leave the theosophical movement is that they brought this young man from India and announced him as potentially the new Messiah. And Rudolf Steiner wasn't happy about that. And so Rudolf Steiner decided to go off and form his own philosophical movement to better match his beliefs.

[Maggie Smith]

That's always what it is. It's always, this isn't exclusion enough for me? I need to make my own version of this thing that's worse and more exclusionary.

[Reese Oliver]

So when you say that these aren't.

[Maggie Smith]

Included in the things that you were being expected to teach the children, obviously, what were some of the weird things that you were expected to teach the children? So while that might not have made it in, what did make the cut, so to speak?

[Reese Oliver]

So Waldorf education has a very, very separate and distinct curriculum from anything that you'll see in a modern public school classroom. Another response that one might get when one mentions Waldorf education is like, oh, yeah, is that school where they don't teach Kids how to read, which is the surface level understanding. In Waldorf schools, the early childhood classrooms are largely play based. And in first grade, we start teaching the Alphabet. There's kind of like curricular themes every year. So in first grade, a lot of the curriculum is taught through fairy tales. Second grade is Aesop's Fables and stories of the Saints. Third grade is Hebrew stories, which is the Old Testament. Fourth grade is Norse mythology. Fifth grade is Greek mythology. And then going up through middle school, it's like, you know, age of Discovery, Age of Enlightenment. It's less story based and more about periods of history like the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

[Amanda Montel]

It's weirdly all giving college elective.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah, it's just every humanities elective you could want. And no, like health class or math.

[Reese Oliver]

A lot of that really appealed to me. I love fairy tales. I love Norse mythology. You're taking a step back because Waldorf schools are not religious schools, and they're very firm about that. We're not religious schools. We don't teach religion. And yet in third grade, you're teaching stories from the Old Testament. They'll say that it's not about the religion, it's about kind of the archetype. So if we want to teach about courage, we'll choose a story, for example, about a saint who was particularly courageous. Or if we're trying to teach about bravery, then we'll tell the story of St. George who, like, fought the dragon and saved the city. And so it's not about, like worshiping the saints. It's about bringing this archetype and this idea to these children so they can sort of bring it into themselves and kind of their soul lives and have it kind of percolate there and bring it forward, you know, as they go into the world as growing beings.

[Amanda Montel]

Okay, so overall, I'm just sort of getting a sense that there are some unexplained contradictions and a lot of expectations of just going along with it. Not questioning, not pushing for any kind of change, just sort of conforming in a way that might not always be sinister, but at a certain point could be. So let's keep talking about some of these cultier elements at play, please.

[Maggie Smith]

So another huge cult element is the creation of hierarchies and us versus them dynamics. Can you talk a little bit about how those hierarchies in Us vs. Them dynamics show up and we'll.

[Reese Oliver]

So one thing that I feel like is important to mention is that Waldorf teachers go with the same group of students, first grade through eighth grade. So the same teacher is with the same group of students all eight years of elementary school and middle school. And the idea behind this is that you get a really, really close relationship with your students, with their families. You get to know the kid really well. And so when a teacher joins a Waldorf school as a first grade teacher, the expectation is that you're going to be with this group of kids for the next eight years. And then also there is very much this kind of implicit expectation of conformity. And when I was doing these lessons with the children, part of what it would involve would be we would all draw a picture together, and they would basically copy the drawing that I was doing with them into their own main lesson books. So there's this expectation that they all have to do it the way that I'm telling them, in the same way, with the same colors. I think the intention behind that is because when Rudolf Steiner was devising Waldorf education In, you know, 1919, 1920, it was still at a time when that expectation of conformity was sort of a given in a lot of ways. I could see that was very stifling for them, not just because that they were, like, spoiled and entitled and wanted to do whatever they want, but because they are children of the 21st century. It was. So I don't think it's necessarily a fair expectation to put on modern children. Of course, it's important to know how to listen, and it's important to be able to follow direction. But I didn't feel like I had the room to give them the freedom to express themselves in their own little unique ways sometimes. Whoa.

[Maggie Smith]

So in learning about the super strong student teacher connections in Waldorf, that's something that really interests me. Especially how you said one teacher following a group of students from K through 8, was it that you said essentially.

[Reese Oliver]

First grade through 8? So, like, early childhood.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah. One person delivering all of that information about every subject for that long of an amount of time does not leave a lot of room for any kinds of, like, checks and balances. And I imagine would also feel like a lot of pressure as that teacher.

[Amanda Montel]

Yeah, it's an interesting difference in power distribution to ponder because, like, I feel like as a kid, I had some teachers that, like, I couldn't give a fudge about, didn't click with them, whatever. But there were some teachers who I would have joined a cult for, namely my second grade teacher, Ms. Schultz. So, like, I can easily see how if this kind of metaphysical dogma. That's not a dogma, but it is is moving through the guru teacher that you worship like the Holy Spirit. That could start to generate a kind of culty power dynamic over the course of those eight years. That might not exist in another school setting. And there are benefits to that type of relationship, but there could also be drawbacks. And I'm wondering, like, speaking of the conformity and bringing that aspect into the conversation of power dynamics, did you ever witness any instances of students or parents being silenced or even ostracized for questioning certain of Waldorf, Waldorf's methods or philosophy?

[Reese Oliver]

I don't feel that I personally witnessed that from parents or students. I think that these days in particular, most parents are sending their kids to Waldorf schools, honestly, without really an understanding of anthroposophy. They see the pretty colors on the walls and they see the art that is generated, and they see the, like, handworking woodworking classes and an emphasis on, like, recess and, like, imaginative play. And that's what draws them in. And I would say that. But schools can honestly be a little cagey about anthroposophy towards parents. So I don't really think that parents are necessarily questioning in that way, because I would say a lot of them probably don't really know what there is to question.

[Maggie Smith]

That's so sinister.

[Amanda Montel]

That's very interesting. And before we finish our conversation today, I do definitely want to touch on how Waldorf has been able to master such incredible pr because, like, until I started making this podcast, when I heard the phrase Waldorf school, I thought of this utopia. You know, like, I thought of this place where children are free and learning through existing. But what I'm learning is that their parents don't even really know what they're signing their kids up for a lot of the time. So speaking of that juxtaposition of utopia with, like, control behind the scenes, obviously, cults are known to be very controlling in terms of members, clothing, living arrangements, and other conformist rules and rituals. We've read that Waldorf schools have lots and lots of sensory guidelines concerning the surroundings of the students. Soft lighting, artwork, a lack of angles. Could you talk about how controlled you felt as a Waldorf teacher just in terms of what you're doing, your space looked and felt like, because I imagine it's like a little commune of sorts in there, right?

[Reese Oliver]

Yeah. So each classroom is color coded. There's, like, specific colors that are assigned to each grade, and it's some idea about, like, which color is going to be most nourishing to the children at that developmental stage. There's not Supposed to be right angles in a Waldorf school. So a passageway and a hallway might have a few 40 degree angles. Angles rather than being a 90 degree angle. There's a lot of natural wood and flowy silk curtains. And it's not explicitly expressed, but there's a specific mental image of what a Waldorf teacher looks like and how they dress. So lots of natural colors and skirts and natural fibers. The dress code for students tends to be a little bit stricter than you might expect. Obviously, no logos, no TV movie characters. Older schools are very, very firm on discouraging popular media like movies and TV shows. They want children to be able to come up with play out of their own imagination rather than imitating a story that they saw in a movie. And so I would have a child come in with like a picture of a tree on their T shirt. And I'd have to be like, I'm sorry. Like, that's, that's against the dress code.

[Amanda Montel]

Oh, my God, Maggie. This is unearthing a repressed memory. I'm now remembering that in my theater camp where kids were discussing pop culture and wearing trees on their shirts, there was one kid who didn't know jack shit about, like, TV and movies. And you would think, like, this kid grew up in a cult, but everybody excused him because he went to a fucking Waldorf school. It was like, why doesn't Brian know about American Idol? And it's like, oh, he went to a Waldorf school. And everyone was like, oh, okay, okay, okay. And he was like, totally excused. He was like, oh, he came from this, like magical elf land where it like, looks like they don't know about celebrities.

[Maggie Smith]

I have a follow up question about the no logos or characters. From my very limited research on Steiner and his teachings so far, my understanding is that in part this idea of children creating and essentially finding their own play internally is somehow related to them being clairvoyant. Is that not the idea?

[Reese Oliver]

Yeah, there are ideas about clairvoyance in Anthroposophy. And I think that there are ideas about children being a little bit closer to the spiritual world because of just them being younger and closer to having been born. And they don't have all the shit that grown ups have going on in their heads. That wasn't necessarily something that as a teacher we really concerned ourselves with, but it wouldn't surprise me if that was specifically something that Steiner had in mind.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah, I just find it really interesting that all of these things that are seemingly innocuous and that we're like, you know, Maybe we shouldn't be wearing so many, like, TV figures and things like that. And it sounds really wholesome. And then you start to think about it and it's like, what's the logic there? Why actually would that be required of students?

[Reese Oliver]

Right. I think that the way it's justified these days is just not having a lot of screen time and allowing children to really kind of live in their own imagination as opposed to being influenced by some other ideas.

[Amanda Montel]

It's interesting because when I think of, you know, having my own kid one day and there being so much cultural pressure to just like stick them in front of an iPad and have their entire brain and personality dictated by Cocomelon and whatever's on Disney Channel, like, that's horrifying to me. But I can imagine just in the way that cults as we traditionally think of them, are a reaction to some kind of legitimate horror in mainstream society. Whether it's widespread poverty or war or racial injustice, Waldorf schools could continue to thrive more than ever, in a way as a reaction to our ever digitizing society. But I want to continue with your story, Maggie. When did you realize, like, like, oh, I am now certain that this method of schooling might not actually be providing an adequately well rounded worldview for these kids? When did you notice that the information control, so to speak, might be too cultish for comfort, let's say?

[Reese Oliver]

So one of the things that I remember struggling with as a teacher, and I think this can come with there being a disconnect between kind of the teacher training program versus what the schools are actually doing, the kind of emphasis on not pushing reading too early on these kids, and the kind of idea that you're teaching them the Alphabet, you're planting the seeds, and they will grow into it on their own time. And generally by third grade, the kids should be reading okay. And then you get to a school, and the school that I was teaching at was in an area that had quite a few really well regarded and academically rigorous private schools. And they want to remain competitive. So we get like halfway through second grade and they're like, hey, your kids aren't reading yet. That's a problem. I'm looking at my class, I'm thinking they're doing fine. I'm doing what I was taught to do with them. And then the actual school that I'm teaching is coming in and saying that it's not okay, which is tricky because then I wasn't prepared for that in my training. So then you don't necessarily know where to go from There. The one thing that I'll say that isn't necessarily part of my personal experience, but just sort of in terms of Waldorf schools as a whole, is that because the curriculum is so different from what you find in the public schools. The concern is that if the child then leaves the Waldorf school and it goes into a public school, are they then going to be caught up with their peers? And there have been some studies done, like, you know, Waldorf students by the time they're in eighth grade have shown to be, like, at a level or even a little bit beyond where their peers in a public school are. Whereas it's trickier for lower grades. If a child is in a Waldorf school for, like, first or second grade and they go into third grade at a public school, the teacher's gonna be like, why does this kid know how to read at a third grade level? And these are discussions, I feel like, that are happening in Waldorf school schools because they want to be seen as academically rigorous and they want their students to measure up to their peers in other schools. That discussion was unresolved when I left.

[Maggie Smith]

So you touched briefly on this conversation, kind of really kicking in around the time that you decided to make your exit from Waldorf. We would like to know a little bit more about what your deconstruction looks like.

[Reese Oliver]

So I did not decide to leave. I was fired. And I think that people who may be listening to this, who are in the Waldorf world, who heard me say that I was with my students through second grade, probably already know that that raised a flag for them, because that's not uncommon. Waldorf is a very fast growing education movement, particularly in these times, like you were saying, with technology in some ways becoming really toxic, people wanting to get away from that. And also Waldorf education is hemorrhaging teachers. My teacher training program, within a couple years of our graduation, I would say fewer than half were still teaching. I was a new teacher who was kind of struggling. I had a lot of high need students in the class, and the school decided not to continue with me. And the day that I found out anyone had any concern about me as a teacher was the day that I found out I was losing my job.

[Amanda Montel]

Oh, my God.

[Reese Oliver]

There weren't really checks and balances or efforts made to be like, how can we help this new young teacher improve and be a better teacher. It was more like, this person is having trouble, so we're just going to find them a new teacher. And when I say that it happens a lot, I know so many former Waldorf teachers who've had shit like that happen to them where they're let go after second or third grade, or they voluntarily leave because they're struggling and they need support and the school is not giving it. I've been asking for support for all the years that I'd been there. And I would be like, hey, I'm having trouble with this particular student. And I would be told like, well, have you talked to your angels?

[Amanda Montel]

What?

[Reese Oliver]

Have you asked your angels for guidance?

[Amanda Montel]

You're kidding me. Who would say that to you? The principal.

[Reese Oliver]

Well, there aren't principals.

[Amanda Montel]

Oh, there aren't principals. Okay.

[Maggie Smith]

There aren't really principals.

[Reese Oliver]

A lot of schools are kind of famously dysfunctional on an administrative level. In the meeting where I found out I was losing my job, they gave me this laundry list of things that they would have liked to have seen me do differently that I hadn't done in time. Oh, great. And I asked, why is this the first time I'm hearing about it? Why didn't you sit me down and tell me? And I was told, well, it needed to arise out of you, Maggie.

[Amanda Montel]

That's bonkers and bananas.

[Maggie Smith]

You didn't discern it in the watercolors fast enough for them. I guess that's literally.

[Reese Oliver]

And you know, I've heard of so many people who have been teaching in Waldorf schools and have had something similar happen to them. It's a very strange kind of contradiction to see how this education movement is only growing. They celebrated their 100th year anniversary in 2020, and at the same time, like, Waldorf schools are closing. The school that I attended as a child closed a few years ago.

[Amanda Montel]

Wow. So this just sounds like a hot mess. You were supposed to ask angels for help and then were fucking broken up with out of nowhere. Hate that for you. I want to keep talking about horror stories a wee bit. This is a. Sounds like a cult episode, after all, so we'd love some tea. What would you say are some other examples of, like, freaky, culty shenanigans that Waldorf wreaked on teachers, students, either that you bore witness to personally or that you've, like, heard about through the Whisper Network?

[Reese Oliver]

Absolutely. So I've definitely been thinking about this a lot over the past few weeks since you guys reached out to me and back from the teacher training up through being a member of the faculty. I know that basically, if you had, say, like, a Southern accent or like, a Brooklyn accent, you were kind of implicitly encouraged to, like, drop your accent so that you would be speaking, like, in a more proper way and pronouncing things. But several of our instructors were European. There was also a young woman in my cohort whose first language was not English. So, so, like, those accents were okay. Apparently, because they're from a different country, they can't help having an accent. But if you grew up in Georgia or in Louisiana, well, you need to get rid of that accent. Another kind of particularly culty aspect, the festival life of a Waldorf school is like a major aspect of the school calendar. So a lot of the festivals are around saints days. They're not religious festivals. We're not worshipping a saint. And a lot of schools are kind of changing their terminology. So instead of calling it Michelmas, they're calling it Harvest festival. Instead of calling the feast of Saint Martin in November martinmask, they're calling it Lantern walk. The Advent spiral in December becomes the spiral of light. And so, again, that they'll say that this is about the archetype we're trying to impart to these children. So, you know, Michaelmas will kind of enact this kind of pageant where the dragon is attacking the village, and the sixth graders come forward as the brave knights to battle the dragon and save the day. And then there's, like, feats of strength, so you'll have tug of war and, like, archery contests and things. Martinmas, the lantern walk is about St. Martin, and he's famously the saint who cut his cloak in half for a beggar outside the gates of the city. And then he had a dream where Christ came to him and said, I was that beggar, and you gave me your cloak, and therefore you're blessed. And so that is about kindness to others and bringing light in the darkness. And there's a lantern walk where students. Students make our own little paper lanterns in class. And then we'll meet after dark and we'll do a little walk, like, through the woods or around the campus with our lanterns. And it's honestly really beautiful. They're, like, singing songs and togetherness. And it's like we all have just one little light, but all together, it's one big light.

[Amanda Montel]

It's almost like Lord of the Rings core, which I love.

[Reese Oliver]

Doing the lantern walk with my first graders the day after the 2016 election was actually a quite beautiful and healing.

[Amanda Montel]

Sure.

[Reese Oliver]

I love the festivals. It's. It's one of the things that I loved most about teaching. I honestly think there's a lot of aspects about Waldorf education that are, like, really beautiful. And it's Sort of having children enter into this mood that isn't necessarily present and accessible in a modern life. And I kind of think it's important for children to experience that quiet meditative contemplation. I just think that it can be a little bit tricky when you're purportedly not Christian school celebrating adventure, celebrating a feast day of a saint.

[Amanda Montel]

Yeah. And this is why, like this show is always interesting to me week after week after week, because we as human beings have to find our community somewhere. And in 21st century America in particular, there are like increasingly weird and niche and fun and sometimes harmful ways of doing that. And it's not about avoiding them altogether. Like, of course, there are beautiful parts of Waldorf. That's what attracted you to it. That's what keeps it growing. That's why it has still this kind of utopian reputation. If you were to ask the layperson on the street. And that doesn't mean that it's not culty and doesn't deserve scrutiny. Like, it's both, both same, same. It's haha and oh no.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah. Could you talk about how Waldorf schools do such a good job at squashing bad primary or avoiding change? And do you think that there's any true malintent there?

[Reese Oliver]

That's such an interesting question. I don't think that there's malintent. I think that true die hards in Waldorf schools really do believe in the philosophy behind it and are very committed to it and as such are reluctant to change because they feel every aspect of it is so important. They don't really publicize where it comes from. You know, they don't go into a lot of detail, you know, with family and in their PR of like what interaction apostrophe is and like who Rudolf Steiner was and what his impulse was behind founding Waldorf schools. And I think that they often have good tight elevator pitch sort of answers if people ask them. And I think when there is bad pr, it's generally maybe a former family or a former student coming forward with kind of a grievance of having a poor experience. And so that's kind of easily explained away as, oh, well, that was a unique circumstance. You know, I'm sure, like, there are people in the wilder world who are going to hear me talking to you. And like, she was fired. That's why she's talking to them, because she like, you know, had a bad experience. And it's not, it's not all like that.

[Amanda Montel]

We just want to ask two more questions, something I brought up at the beginning of our conversation, we've been getting requests to cover this topic for years. I think, by a lot of those sort of people that you mentioned just now, folks who've had a negative experience felt sort of, at best, maybe belittled or condescended to or bait and sway by a Waldorf school, and at worst, have felt exploited. But I'm curious, like, there wasn't so much sort of trepidation surrounding Montessori schools or home schools, but there was this trepidation surrounding Waldorf, and I'm wondering why you think that is.

[Reese Oliver]

Yeah, that's really interesting. And I think that it can be because people who are in it feel so committed to it and kind of feel defensive of it. I also have had some small nerves thinking about doing this conversation, partially because I still know a lot of people who are, like, more involved in Waldorf y things. And so I think that because within kind of the bubble of your Waldorf school, whether you're a teacher or a family there, it is such a strong community because you're with the same people for almost a decade if it all works out as intended. And so you don't want to put stress on that, and you don't want to drive away edge between yourself and whatever community you have going on there. And, you know, I stopped teaching at waldorf schools in 2017, so it's been eight years. I'm still in touch with several of my classmates from my graduate program. I'm still in touch with people who I went to school with when I was a Waldorf student. And so those roots run really deep. And I think that people can be nervous about poking the beast.

[Amanda Montel]

Wow. Okay. The last question is just we were wondering if you could talk about one of the ready, oddest of the cult flags, which is exit costs. What do you give up or fear giving up by leaving Waldorf schools?

[Maggie Smith]

Sure.

[Reese Oliver]

So in terms of exiting, I think it's a little bit different for whether you're a teacher leaving or a family leaving. Obviously, for families, such a tight community is built up within those. Those eight years. Particularly when I was a student in Waldorf schools, I joined pretty late in the game, and I would hear about students who'd previously been in the class and had left to move away or go to another school. And it wasn't quite like hearing about someone who had died, but it was definitely like hearing about someone who is, like, no longer a part of us. Basically, you leave the school, you kind of leave the community. As a teacher, I would say that the most significant exit costs is that my Master's of education, my teacher training program, didn't actually certify me to teach in. In the public school. So I could go and get that certification if I wanted to, but I would have to do a lot of extra work. So as my certification is right now, I can pretty much only teach in Waldorf schools. However, the fact that I left a Waldorf school after second grade is a huge red flag. And I've had experiences applying at a Waldorf school, and they found out that I left after second grade, and without even asking for the details, they chose not to move forward.

[Amanda Montel]

So without revealing too much, where'd you end up? How'd you land on your feet?

[Reese Oliver]

So right now, I'm very happy working as a baker. I work at an artisan bakery. I'm in the bread department. I make bread. It's awesome. I love it.

[Maggie Smith]

Oh, love that.

[Reese Oliver]

It's much less stressful than teaching was amazing.

[Amanda Montel]

Maggie, thank you so much for coming on the show, for sharing your story, for being open to speaking with us. If people want to come visit you at the bakery, I mean, I do.

[Reese Oliver]

Post my bread, Emotional support bread, on Instagram. Instagram. That's amazing. Support bread.

[Amanda Montel]

Like, the healthiest post question I've ever heard.

[Reese Oliver]

What a fairy tale.

[Amanda Montel]

Finish. All right, Reese, out of these three cult categories, live your life, watch your back and get the out. Which one do you think the cult of Waldorf schools falls into?

[Maggie Smith]

I'm getting the fuck out. Once I can learn how to read where the exit sign is.

[Amanda Montel]

Get the fuck out. You know what? You might be right.

[Maggie Smith]

Like, school is something I really don't mess around with.

[Amanda Montel]

It's true. And this is just like, such a filthy origin story. You know what I mean? Like, Steiner. What a jerk.

[Maggie Smith]

It's not far enough away either. Like, even if all of these schools are no longer teaching all of Steiner as anthroposophical principles, what they are teaching instead is not substantial enough to justify their existence, in my opinion.

[Amanda Montel]

Yeah, I'm not seeing much sort of like, accountability and reform on the part of Waldorf schools. I'm just seeing a lot of, like, never complain, never explain, to quote the Royal family's PR approach. You know, which definitely feels culty. I always want to to express sort of like, sensitivity when talking about the ways that people raise their kids, because there are just so many reasons to feel inadequate as a parent in 21st century America. And I. I would like to believe that most parents who are enrolling their kids in Waldorf schools are doing it from an earnest and well intentioned place and they really just want the best for their kid and they want their kid to be immersed in creativity and nature and, and all of that wonderfulness. But the fact that they're just like putting teachers through training, dropping them like flies, rendering them unable to get another education job because of the like closed system, as it would be said in cult discourse of their training, it just, it's all so icky that maybe you're right. It maybe is like a get the fuck out light a little bit.

[Maggie Smith]

I think there are good qualities about it and I think that it operates under a very attractive picture, but I just don't think that's what it is.

[Amanda Montel]

Yeah, and I'm sure plenty of listeners will disagree. And just a reminder, or you know, if you're tuning in for the first time, if you couldn't already tell this, like, live your life, watch your back, get the out level system is imperfect. It's subjective. It's just a way to talk about the risks and stakes and consequences on the table for these individual everyday culture cults. And we aren't the authority on that. We're calling it as we see it, but from the perspective of just like regular humans. I'm honestly of the maybe controversial belief that even social scientists who formally study cults in academic institutions don't have the supreme power to determine when an everyday cultish group is get the fuck out level. You know, like this stuff is subjective. We are bringing our own biases to this, this. And so I don't know, not to sound preachy, I just wanted, I wanted to give a bit of context because I know that these education topics can be delicate.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah, I feel a lot of parallels between people who might be interested in something like this and people who might be drawn to a cult like Free Birthing, where it's really just the result of there not being a sufficient alternative. We're all just doing it for the first time and the circumstances under which we're doing it are changing every day. And a lot of the time, just like the stakeholders can't or aren't interested in keeping up with the needs of the communities they serve. And I can't really blame people for seeking an alternative to that. But I can, I can blame Rudolph Steiner for being racist and starting a cult that takes advantage of that totally.

[Amanda Montel]

And we can distribute blame to maybe those in leadership who uphold his vibe. Well, I expect that discussion will unfold in probably our Instagram comments about this episode. Do follow us. It Sounds like a Cult pod. If you have respectful feedback and want want to contribute to this conversation, we appreciate your listenership. And with that said, that is our show.

[Maggie Smith]

Thank you so much for listening.

[Amanda Montel]

Stick around for a new cult next week, but in the meantime Day Culty.

[Maggie Smith]

But Not Too Culty.

[Amanda Montel]

Sounds Like a Cult was created by Amanda Montel and edited by Jordan Moore of the Pod Cabin. This episode was hosted by Amanda Montel and Reese Oliver. This episode was produced by Reese Oliver. Our managing producer is Katie Epperson. Our theme music is by Casey Cole. It is if you enjoyed the show, we'd really appreciate it if you could leave it 5 stars on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It really helps the show a lot. And if you like this podcast, feel free to check out my book the Language of Fanaticism, which inspired the show. You might also enjoy my other books, the Age of Magical Overthinking, Notes on Modern Irrationality and Word A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language. Thanks as well to our network studio 71 and be sure to follow the Sounds Like a Cult Cult on Instagram for all the discourse. Sounds Like a Cult Pod or support us on Patreon to listen to the show ad free at patreon.com soundslikeacult.