The couple at the centre of the Titirangi Steiner school case, currently in front of the Tribunal of Human Rights in New Zealand, say they were “mobbed” by Steiner critics for encouraging people to speak out about abuses in the Steiner movement.
A well-known Steiner critic, Alicia h., attacked the couple, after Ms Garden, wrote an article on the Local Schools Network looking at the case of the Norfolk Steiner school in which Jo Sawfoot was acknowledged by Employment Tribunal to have been ‘targeted’ as an irritant. The judge described Ms Sawfoot as a whistleblower. You can read about this case here and here, and download the court papers here.
Given how similar the targeting techniques were of the two schools, including lying to Government bodies, Ms Garden’s article on LSN expressed how encouraging she found the judgement, and further encouraged others to come forward with such cases.
The Steiner critics mobbed the couple online, saying that asking others to speak out was the same as pressuring them, by making them feel guilty. Unable to answer the question "if people don't identify the schools where children are mistreated, how will it stop?", the blogger Alicia h., along with another critic Diana, went in for a mobbing, which took place on Alicia’s blog and met a gruelling 16 points in this online test.
Angel Garden, mother of the three children who were expelled from the private Titirangi Steiner School in West Auckland, says an anonymous Steiner critic, Thetis Mercurio, joined in the mobbing by remaining silent about circumstances known to her which may have had an effect on whether criticism was seen to be justified and whether it continued.
Angel Garden described the situation she found herself in….
“It was really horrible, Alicia did all the classic techniques, questioning everything about us, running us down and using stigmatising language, saying it was our fault and we made everything up including people thanking us, and that they needed to warn people off us etc., and the main thing that is levelled against whistle blowers, that we’re out for ourselves....
“The anonymous critic known as Thetis Mercurio asked me to write the article, because of the need to publicise the fact of having got our case in front of the Human Rights Commission. Yet when the critics laid into us, she did not come forward. Thetis and Alicia are good friends. We would like Thetis Mercurio to come forward and explain why she did not prevent her friend from mobbing us by using accusations such as that we are just out for ourselves, when Thetis knew perfectly well the reason why I wrote the article and she could have stepped in and told the mobbers that which would at least have got them off that angle!
“There were five of them in total, Alica h, Thetis Mercurio, Diana, Esther Fiddler and PeteK, most of whom are very vocal in the anti-steiner movement.
“Alicia first objected to a comment I made which she found dismissive of Steiner critics. She came in pretty hard with a my-friends-have-done-a-lot-more-than-you-for-Steiner-criticism kind of thing and I immediately apologised and acknowledged her point, but she just ignored that and went off on her 'guilt trip' number, which was the beginning of the duffing up that we received.
“There was only one line in the LSN article inviting people to send in testimony, but that infuriated Alicia, who interpreted a general invitation as me "guilt-tripping" and “targeting” people. It was OTT. Alicia and Diana couldn't answer the question "if people don't come forward how will it stop?", but they had a very strong viewpoint that "most people just get on with their lives”, and they obviously think that this is the ‘normal’ response.”
Oddly though, in this instance, that viewpoint seems to have led them to attack two people who have worked hard to bring awareness to the several issues raised by what happened to their children.
“The mobbing has made us realise that there are many agendas in "Steiner criticism" that might be hidden. The strong agenda around secrecy, with Thetis Mercurio hanging back and just watching us getting mobbed by her friend, seems like a continuation of the secrecy that exists within the schools, and the Steiner critics rank-pulling might indicate that some similar unofficial but powerful hierarchy may exist within the critics community. There was just no reason for the critics to be so vicious towards us. And there is very little we could do to call Thetis Mercurio out, since she's anonymous!
“The critics stated that to just ‘get on with your life’ is the common thing to do, apparently as a virtue, whereas we, who thought it would be over quickly, went in to try and make a change and were due to have the meeting with the trustees, which was very supported by many at the school, and then, instead, we were foisted out. So we stood up, and what happened next was so extraordinary, in terms of the whole skuttling and reorganisation that went on, that it did take us a while to realise none had the will for it at all in face of the pressure to conform.
“Then we realised that we were also in an absolute legal vacuum regarding children’s welfare, which we set about looking into."
The couple have worked hard to expose the gaps in the law on private schools in New Zealand, earning commendation from opposition Education spokesmanTrevor Mallard.
“We’ve always been careful to examine how much of what happened to our children and ourselves at the hands of the school was down to the Steiner connection. But we discovered that, being a private school, there is simply no law governing the welfare of children at that school, and we were immigrants, so really we’ve done quite well in getting it onto the Tribunal Director’s desk and that was only through publication.
“That’s why it’s so satisfying for us that someone used our information to avoid their own child getting hurt and why we appreciate them letting us know about it.
“The fact that alicia and Diana said that other people’s testimony featured by us might just be fake, and probably is, even those people thanking us, is just really really unkind. There’s no other way to put that unfortunately. It’s rubbishing them just as much as us, and it’s in pretty bad taste really especially towards those people in our videos who wanted to make a statement but didn’t feel they had any choice but to do it anonymously, which was supposedly the position the critics were trying to 'defend' when they attacked us.
“That’s just another point that shows that the mobbing happened for its own sake and not really to defend any particular point of view.
“After this event we can only assume that those for whom the need for anonymity so that they can 'get on with their lives', near or within the same community that they have some 'criticism' of, that what happened to them was mild enough that that would be possible. We think there is a big difference between the two things, people who have had to fight and may have lost much, to keep their self respect and try to alert others, and those who wish to maintain their lifestyle as a first priority, whom we must assume are not really being anonymous about anything particularly bad, as to keep silent about things that really would put other peoples kids in danger, on the basis of your kid’s school friends, we think would be repugnant to most people, so we just assume that what happened to us is entirely different and that’s why those critics just don’t understand us. For us it was nothing to do with lifestyle.
“That's why we found Pete K's dropping in to make a "how sad, these people seemed legit" comment so disappointing. We would have expected him to understand, since he’s been very litigious and outspoken all along and had to fight fiercely. Yet he didn't seem to realise that he'd just joined in with a mobbing, and hammered into a family who are simply trying to make a difference. It was pretty disappointing to be frank since he seemed not to have even read the blog and didn’t question any of the crass assumptions that were being made there. And he almost certainly isn’t aware of Thetis Mercurio’s involvement.
“It’s also interesting to note that we’ve got TV companies denying Steiner parents a voice on the pretext that they won’t put the kids on the telly on the one hand, and on the other there are Steiner critics using the fact of having spoken out at all as a reason not to be given a voice, since others may feel guilty for not doing so. With such restrictions on being allowed to speak, and so many difficult ‘requirements’ to meet it’s hardly surprising that the uninitiated still think Steiner Education is a softer, better alternative, which means the movement keeps growing and the unsuspecting will keep falling into big deep holes.”
Asked what the agenda of the critics was in slamming people who are appearing on the desk of the HR tribunal, Angel said:
“I don’t understand it at all, it is worrying that anonymity should be placed so clearly above the welfare of children who aren’t yours, as if they aren’t as valuable somehow as your own “identity”. Elsewhere Alicia h states that “If critics had known all these things before choosing waldorf, they would have chosen differently” yet she told us to “shut up”.
“The original article on LSN only asked a couple of questions about anonymity, but Alica said that was “targeting” people, a word that also appeared in the judgement of the Norfolk Steiner school. When Alicia was picked up using such a provocative word though, she did fudge it and back-pedal quite hard by saying that she meant ‘target’ in the sense of us not trying to attract trainspotters. So she wasn’t meaning ‘target’ at all in the sense of the article. It’s a classic mobbing tactic, talk it up big, throw mud at you, but if you call them out, they’ll throw it into the ridiculous basket. Mention the libellous element in claiming that your work is all fake, your footage illegal, and the big guns disappear, to be replaced with a strain of hilarity - trainspotters.
“We are astonished that these people think that they somehow own a territory called “Steiner Criticism”, and will police it in this way in the face of the evidence of abuses that some people document and then use that information to call the schools to account. Are the Steiner Critics an organisation? If so, where’s the constitution?
“We are very unwilling to classify ourselves as Steiner “critics”, anyway, looking at the judgement in the Jo Sawfoot case, and alicia’s comment that she found discussing the weird philosophy of Rudolf Steiner more interesting. She, of course, has now made it clear that we’re not one of them and they all need to be warned off.
“We identify more with Jo Sawfoot’s approach as it is more similar to ours. We don’t want to engage with the nutty anthroposophy of Steiner education, we would rather stick to the facts, which are, in Jo Sawfoot’s case that she’s been targeted as a whistleblower in a kindergarten. That was the court judgement.
“We did not expect our whistleblowing to have the effect that it did, that’s certainly something that needs to be said. We thought that if we stood up that in 24 hours it would be history, because there were so many people in the school saying that it was great someone was finally doing something about it. In the end, some people, who have all left the school, decided that they would like to give testimony and they asked us to reconstruct it, due to the lifestyle reasons that Alicia and Diana have advocated. So why they are slamming us for that I don't know.
“Alicia and the other critics are not honouring them or their choice, by slamming us for that or saying that because an actor is speaking the words of another person, while the screen tells you that it’s a “reconstruction” that it means that it’s "fiction". It wasn't true, it's just another mobbing tactic. Have a look at the test!
“Obviously we are not much understood by Alicia (indeed she said as much) or the others who joined in the with the mobbing. But just because you are ignorant of a way of responding to something, or doing things, that is not reason to attack people.
“There is a lot of Steiner related testimony online, but a lot of it is not attached to any school. Even though Steiner schools use the whole, “it depends on the individual school” thing as a huge buck-pass, nevertheless I'm not sure that it's whistle blowing to just leave the identity of schools out when publishing such material. It’s quite a clever tactic in a way to tar the whole movement by just letting it hang there that it could by any Steiner School. Not really sure about the ethics of that though.”
So how does it feel to have been attacked by those from whom they might have expected help or at least an attempt at understanding?
“Well looking into it a bit more, these are just the kinds of things that happen to whistle blowers, although we didn't expect to be whistle blowing the Steiner critics in this way, I think people should be aware of how autocratic it's all become. After what happened to us, we feel it is urgent to make clear to people who may think of standing up, how hard it might be for them, when even groups who they might turn to for advice, help or support, may turn on them savagely if they are perceived to be a threat. That kind of thing, in whistle blowing terminology is called “secondary wounding” and it’s fairly standard unfortunately.
“And in a way that proves the point because why should there be a movement of people opposed to Steiner criticism, with it's own rules etc.? Doesn't that just mean that it's not being very effective, since it's getting so cosy?...
“The reason that the Steinermentary project is self-generating is because only those people who wish to stand up and give straight back the atrocious aggression that has just been shown to them by a community, will access it, and therefore it is for them. Others, such as those who don’t want people to know who they are, in being “critical”, or who want to spend a lot of time discussing the indoctrination effects of a cult education, have plenty of places to go. Our time in Steiner was so short, we have no knowledge of those things, as we weren't really indoctrinated.”
So aren't you trying to take over Steiner Criticism with your Steinermentary site?
“God no! I can't think of anything worse than getting too attached to it all… We just made Steinermentary to mark his 150th birthday. It was our present to Rudolf Steiner, that’s all, we thought that it would be a good idea to provide this sort of platform in case people got brave and wanted to put video up. The mobbers ridiculed our site saying that YouTube already exists, but people wouldn't necessarily find this material on YouTube where there is such a glut. We're still looking for evidence, but if it's just us and now the papers from the Norfolk case, so similar and on the other side of the world, then Rudolf is a very lucky boy to have such ethical advertising. After this we'll be clarifying our policies and our priorities for outing abuses in this school movement.
“As far as PLANS is concerned, we of course recognise Dan Dugan’s contribution to the “canon” of Steiner criticism, but we feel that he is more than that, and that such an old campaigner will know all about the hype and just be glad that someone else is doing some work. We don't know, we wrote to him ages ago but we never heard back.”
So how do you feel about the Steiner Critics now?
“I think Alicia h., Diana and the rest have reduced themselves unnecessarily in their treatment of us, she could have made positive criticisms politely which we would have appreciated. As it was, even when I gave her ample recognition, apologising immediately for my mistake, she didn’t even acknowledge it.
“Basically she seems to have been looking for an excuse to lay into us, and me writing the article gave her that excuse. As far as Thetis Mercurio is concerned, we hold her responsible for not calling off her friend by simply telling her the truth, what her motivation for that was, is totally beyond me, she came over as so supportive…..but she’s used her anonymity as a weapon in this instance.
“The mobbing makes it harder to take anything positive from the criticism, because, if there are important bits to think about in there, they are so covered in attacking, ridiculing, accusatory and frankly libellous statements, that it’s a pretty toxic job to go and look for them.
“It is possible that as alicia h. is someone who didn’t have a choice about staying in Steiner education, she may not have much understanding of people like us who are prepared to stand up and take stringent action on our own children’s behalf even in the face of such open aggression. That’s no excuse for her being so slap-happy. This kind of behaviour certainly will not help the reputation of the Steiner Critics.”
Keith Thompson
ANM