A movement that claims to be close to nature, on which the Waldorf pedagogy is inspired, has been singled out in Germany to partly explain the low vaccination rate in certain regions of the country. Quebec has four Waldorf schools, but its administrators ensure that the education one receives there does not in any way discourage vaccination.
Waldorf pedagogy is based on “anthroposophy”, a movement of thought founded by Austrian Rudolf Steiner in the 1910s. Inspired by various religions, it applies in the fields of education, medicine and agriculture, in particular.
In recent weeks, European media have observed that this trend and its alternative approach to medicine could be “an obstacle” to vaccination against COVID-19 in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
Germany has around 230 Waldorf schools and they have “often been the starting point of measles epidemics,” Ansgar Martins, professor of philosophy of religion at Goethe University in Frankfurt, told Agence France-Presse. .
There are four Waldorf schools in Quebec where the emphasis is on “manual work, concrete manipulations and the arts”: two are public, two are private. Most of them welcome primary school children.
In 2015, the one who was then the coordinator of the Rudolf Steiner school in Montreal told Agence Science-Presse that she did not “have a philosophy of participating in vaccination campaigns”.
“We rather advocate alternative medicine, such as homeopathy”, said Isabelle Létourneau at the time. She no longer works at the Rudolf Steiner School in Montreal, specifies today the spokesperson for the establishment, Geneviève Bertrand.
The school has not received a request from Public Health to host a vaccination clinic so far, but if it does, “we will participate,” says Mme Bertrand.
Parents whose children attend this school are a reflection of what we see in society in general, she adds.
“I don’t see any extremes on the anti-tax side. There are, but there are as many as there are people who have photos of their vaccinated children on Facebook, ”illustrates Geneviève Bertrand.
Anthroposophy, some branches of which are “out of the ordinary”, is “in no way” taught to students, further assures the spokesperson for the Rudolf Steiner school in Montreal. “We teach the basics of Waldorf pedagogy, married to the requirements of the ministry [de l’Éducation] », Explains Mme Bertrand.
On the website of the École des Enfants-de-la-Terre, which depends on the school service center of the Région-de-Sherbrooke, it is written that “in Waldorf pedagogy, the progression of the teaching style s ‘accords with the development of human nature as conceived by Rudolf Steiner,’ the founder of anthroposophy.
“This is not where this debate should take place”
Located in the heart of the village of Val-David, in the Laurentians, the private Imagine school says it was faced with a choice by Public Health: to partner with a larger school for the vaccination of its students against COVID-19 , or transmit information to parents. The second option was chosen for the sake of simplicity, we are told.
The establishment is not against vaccination, therefore? Taking a stand on this is not her role, answers Ginette Sirard, a consultant at Imagine school.
Sometimes, we have parents who seek to position themselves, and we tell them that this is not where this debate should take place.
Ginette Sirard, consultant at Imagine school
Does she believe that there are more parents resistant to vaccination than elsewhere? “Surely, as refractory to a lot of business too”, says Mr.me Sirard. “These are people who will choose to do something because they have done the thinking that went with it,” she continues, citing the choice of a school or the decision to have her child vaccinated or not.
There is no anti-vaccination movement in the anthroposophical movement, assures for his part the president of the Association for Waldorf education in Quebec, François Dostie.
There are “perhaps several people, within this movement, more than elsewhere, who are convinced that there is an immunity that one can acquire by having the disease”, but he does not it would be “not fair” to put everyone in the same basket, he says.
Professor at the School of Public Health of the University of Montreal, Roxane Borgès Da Silva notes that having an approach to health that one could qualify as natural does not necessarily mean that one is more resistant to vaccination.
“We have everything, in all sections of the population, regardless of how we categorize it: the young, the old, the big guys, the not big guys. There are people who adhere to a sustainable approach to health, close to nature, who adhere to science and will be provaccinated, ”observes Professor Borgès Da Silva.
She observes that it is during childhood or adolescence that one adheres to values or an ideology, and that it is “very difficult” to change them afterwards.
“We have to deploy very great efforts and this is a bit like what we see in Quebec today, with people who refuse to adhere to science and vaccination,” says Mr.me Borges Da Silva.
Waldorf schools in Quebec
- École des Enfants-de-la-Terre (public), in Waterville (Estrie), Sherbrooke Region School Service Center
- L’Eau Vive community school (public), in Warwick (Center-du-Québec), Bois-Francs school service center
- Imagine School (private), in Val-David (Laurentides)
- Rudolf Steiner School of Montreal (private)