Medical Anthropology Exists - Who Knew

Dolly Welsh

Thu, Oct 29 2015, 1:18 am

Article about the "member of the in-group" psychology of non-vaccinating parents in elite schools. Only in elite schools. These are "Waldorf" schools. His findings may have general application, I feel.

As a remedy, the author proposes that small manufacturers make boutique-y sounding, micro brew, artisan vaccines. Those might get better acceptance in the studied population. He means no one ill; he just wants people not to get sick. His tone isn't mean or critical.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.....tract

He presents that nobody wants to feel they are common and run of the mill. They want to be cool, thoughtful, smart, people. They don't want to do ordinary dumb boring things that the whole country does. Vaccinating is way too mass market. They want to be special. In-group. Upscale. Limited edition.

I am not a scientist and didn't read the whole piece.

I intuited this but had no idea it could be laid out in such precise terms by a discipline I had never heard of: medical anthropology.

PinkFridge

Thu, Oct 29 2015, 10:09 am

Dolly Welsh wrote:

How interesting. And what a very interesting way you have of framing it. (BTW, interesting is generally a compliment in my book.)
It reminds me of a Rabbi Frand video I saw taken at the Sinai Indaba (easily available via google but I don't think I'll be able to find the link on this computer) where he talks of how everyone wants their children to be unique - look at the names and spellings they give them.

And I'm not terribly interested in reading this book but the premise is interesting.
http://www.amazon.com/You-Are-.....93340
(And google the title for the youtube.)

Ok, sorry for the hijack. Back to vaxland.

MagentaYenta

Thu, Oct 29 2015, 10:21 am

Rudolph Steiner, the man who developed Waldorf schools, was an amazing and insightful educator. Many of their residential special needs schools that are Waldorf are self supporting, grow their own food and highly sustainable enterprises. Waldorf schools are typified by high levels of parental involvement. Three of my children spent 2 years in Waldorf schools rather than nursery schools.

If you read deeply into Steiners philosophy you'll find a love and respect for all of nature and the ultimate connectivity of all creatures. Waldorf schools are not elite. The are simply schools that enable a unique philosophy of education that works. FWIW the schools are own and run by the parents. There is no tuition crisis in Waldorf schools, most hire highly educated folks who have a commitment to Steiners philosophy and teacher training.

Waldorf families are not all anti or pro vax. There are no boxes.

Dolly Welsh

Thu, Oct 29 2015, 11:42 am

I know nothing about Waldorf schools or Steiner. Glad they were of use to you. The article seems to say about half of the parents he studied at Waldorf did not vax. Half. Half is a lot.

I suppose there are plenty of people who don't vax, and don't go to Waldorf schools. It's not as if Waldorf people are the only bad puppies all by themselves. No.

The Waldorf approach may be fine, except for non vaxxing, and, it does not require non-vaxxing, although he presents that it subtly encourages it.

So this is not a put-down of Waldorf schools, or Steiner.

It's about the psychology of non-vaxxing, as he sees it, in general, not only in Waldorf schools.

I am impressed with the half of the parents who DO vax, in Waldorf schools. They must be brave and thoughtful. It's not easy to look doltish and common. That hurts.

The strange mixing of good science and bad other things is odd. If you are rational enough to like good stewardship of nature, why aren't you rational enough to stick with rational examination of other things. What's the need for pseudo-specialness. But that's the province of this science, medical anthropology.

Getting the balance right between rationality and belief is done particularly well, even perfectly, by Orthodox Judaism, in my opinion, and I would say that to Steiner. I don't think he would agree with me.

It is sorrowful to see good science tainted by bad science. Through people's (READ: WOMEN'S, YOU NEVER SEE FATHERS IN THIS MUCH, ANTI VAXXING IS MUCH STRONGER AMONG WOMEN) need to differentiate themselves socially and psychologically, and be elite.

If a women wants to be elite, it would better for her to blow vast sums on an Hermes purse or shoes, than not vaccinate. But Hermes would get her no points at Waldorf. So instead she doesn't vaccinate, and I am in danger. That isn't a nice monument to Steiner's well-meaning efforts.

The premise of the piece is that non-vaxxing is the functional equivalent of a status purse from a high-end designer.

MagentaYenta

Thu, Oct 29 2015, 12:26 pm

Dolly Welsh wrote:

...I am impressed with the half of the parents who DO vax, in Waldorf schools. They must be brave and thoughtful. It's not easy to look doltish and common. That hurts.
...
The premise of the piece is that non-vaxxing is the functional equivalent of a status purse from a high-end designer.

Waldorf folks are not in little boxes, and depending on the location of the school and state laws where they operate some are mandatory vax. The one locally is. One of the schools my kids went to in CA was mandatory vax.

To compare Waldorf education to a designer purse is total hot air. The schools and how they are run by the parents are very egalitarian. Jewish private schools could learn a lot from their business and educational models.

Dolly Welsh

Thu, Oct 29 2015, 12:50 pm

In all other things, yes. The piece was not at all about Waldorf schools as good schools or not.

I DID NOT compare Waldorf schools to a designer purse. I compared NON VAXXING to a designer purse. I said, quoting the piece, that fully HALF of Waldorf parents vaccinate. The other half don't.

To this discussion, it doesn't matter if Waldorf schools are run well or badly, or egalitarian or not. The non-vaxxing is the problem and it isn't confined to any one school system. Obviously. There are people on this forum who aren't using Waldorf schools who don't vax.

Waldorf was only dragged in because it is a population this piece examined. Probably because he couldn't study closely the wider population of people who don't vax, and thought interesting mentalities ABOUT NOT VAXXING, NOT OTHER THINGS, could be extracted from this Waldorf population.

I resent non-vaxxing on three levels. 1) It kills children. 2) It can kill me. 3) It is anti-rational and gives rationalism, which I prize, a bad name.

I know nothing about Steiner or Waldorf. I just wish they would vax.

This piece is very insightful about the motivations behind non-vaxxing.

If he's wrong, well, anthropologists are not chemists. It's a talk science. No bunsen burners or petri dishes. But reading him might be part of "doing one's research". He is, after all, a degreed anthropologist and it's a legit publication.

As for educational models, one size does not fit all, and there should be lots of choices, including home schooling and Waldorf. But they should all be vaxxed.

Fox

Thu, Oct 29 2015, 1:15 pm

Dolly Welsh wrote:

He presents that nobody wants to feel they are common and run of the mill. They want to be cool, thoughtful, smart, people. They don't want to do ordinary dumb boring things that the whole country does. Vaccinating is way too mass market. They want to be special. In-group. Upscale. Limited edition.

Fantastic topic, Dolly! This touches on so much more than the issue of vaccinations.

While it's perhaps not true that *every* Waldorf school could be described as "elite" and that they do have a goal of inclusiveness, the facts on the ground are that a majority are enclaves of privilege.

The Chicago Waldorf School, which has a fantastic reputation, charges approximately $17K per year. They give out approximately $750K a year in scholarships. If that were divided equally among all 350 students, each would receive a bit over $2100, bring down the cost to just under $15K.

So my immigrant Honduran cleaning lady is not sending her kids to Waldorf, and their website photos confirm this. Most of the photos could just as easily by captioned, "White People Celebrate Their Culture!"

They just moved into a new building, too, and guess where it's located? In Englewood or even Hyde Park? No, ma'am. In Logan Square, one of the hippest places right now.

Now, I'm definitely not dissing Waldorf Schools. Steiner's philosophy has much to recommend it, and while I'm not a fan of slavish devotion to *any* single educational approach, I think every school should integrate various parts of the Waldorf approach.

While anti-vaxxing is definitely not connected to Waldorf practices, this was certainly an excellent sample of a certain demographic.

As a child, I attended a laboratory school with families not unlike those who would select a Waldorf school, and I think the description of people who want to be "cool, thoughtful, and smart" is spot-on.

My analysis, even though I couldn't articulate it as a child, was that these were folks who had plenty of money and education but no real purpose in life. They didn't actually *want* any significant purpose -- becoming a Buddhist monk, a Fortune 500 CEO, or a world-class musician would have required a lot of work and sacrifice.

But they weren't content with what they felt were uninspiring lives.

So they embarked on various "passions" that allowed them to feel important without seriously compromising their lifestyles. My friends' parents did things like teaching belly dancing; giving "health food" cooking lessons; learning Native American beading techniques; and running a non-profit feminist bookstore.

None of these things is necessarily bad. Belly dancing is great exercise; what passed for "health food" in those days is pretty mainstream now; if you like to bead, go for it; and in the pre-Kindle era, it's hard to argue with a bookstore.

Underneath it all, though, was a sense of ennui. These were desperate people looking for something, anything, to animate their lives. They were smart enough to recognize their insignificance in the world but not brave enough to embrace it *or* transcend it.

Any issue or cause that is embraced as "cool" by such communities has a big problem, and that's what the anti-vaxxing movement is, IMHO, currently grappling with:

Because of education and money, such people have loud voices in the public fray. But their knowledge and commitment is less than their passion. They tend to make grand statements and rile up the public forum, and then slink away when the going gets rough or they get bored.

Btw, this is also the mentality behind inaccurate racial or cultural identification, such as that of Rachel Dolezal. I knew many people who claimed identification with an oppressed or otherwise exotic group when, in fact, their genealogical ties were suspect and their cultural ties nonexistent.

Fox

Thu, Oct 29 2015, 1:44 pm

PinkFridge wrote:

Fox, that description makes me think of Where'd You Go, Bernadette?

I hadn't read this, but after reading your comment, I immediately went to Amazon and downloaded it.

Really, rather than hanging out on Imamother, I should write a book based on some of the characters I encountered.

What's hilarious is that many of the people I remember now live in a retirement community along with my parents. Now that they're mostly in their 80s, there's less belly dancing involved.

The latest thing is "meditation," which can presumably be done sitting down. When my mom told me about this, I thought she meant guided meditation or something similar. No, apparently not. They just sit together and . . . meditate.

I asked why, if it's not guided, do they do it together. Is it a form of meditation I just don't know about? Not really, according to my mother, though as a former business professor, she's not really an insider among the meditation/belly dancing clique.

My own experience suggests that for ladies in their 80s who attempt to "meditate" right after a heavy lunch, the end result might be closer to what you or I would describe as "a nap."

Dolly Welsh

Thu, Oct 29 2015, 2:07 pm

There was no intention to disrespect Waldorf schools, or upscale life in general. Or pretentiousness or snobbism.

Only not vaxxing. That is the only problem. The rest was only a framework for analyzing the motivation to not vax.

It is an interesting topic you raise, but it is another topic.

Those were just alienated Jews who didn't have contact with Chabad. As Chabad only came on the scene too late for them, and their backgrounds made it impossible for them to consider Chabad, meaning Judaism at all, we can only pity them.

Their missing limb itched.

That is a damnable thing. You can't scratch it because it isn't there.

But it was there, and the roots, which you can't reach, itch.

The only thing to do is re-attach it. This can be accomplished at Chabad. Other places and orgs are valuable too.

MagentaYenta

Thu, Oct 29 2015, 3:36 pm

PAMOM wrote:

Totally off topic--but why am I not surprised, Magenta Yenta, that your kids went to a Waldorf school? I was really interested in sending my daughter to one but didnt in the end. I know there are Jewish Montessori schools. Why not Jewish Waldorf? I like the philosophy.

My sons went first and then my DD. They work with my philosophy of life. Love, acceptance, everyone comes from a different place but meets on common ground. No one is put in boxes and Steiners philosophy of education works for young kids IMHO. As I said in my earlier posts their work with special needs children is fantastic, both in day schools and boarding schools.

Our local Waldorf is exceptional and has an integrated curriculum and specialists for SN children. They are a great educational option for some families. They work closely with the local ARC as well. The community supports and welcomes their options.

Fox

Thu, Oct 29 2015, 4:12 pm

This is slightly OT, but one of my biggest crazy-making issues (yes, aside from Regents) is that so many frum schools aren't willing to learn from other philosophies of education or even just from other successful schools.

They justify this, frequently, by claiming that they want to be faithful to the mesorah of chinuch, but if you examine it, "perfect" Jewish education embodies tons of the ideas found in more modern pedagogical thought. A successful Waldorf school is more likely to use the methodologies of our various mesorahs than our own schools!

Many of the ideas promoted by Steiner are remarkably similar to various advice given by Chazal or by gadolim throughout the ages. So why shouldn't administrators and teachers have at least a passing familiarity with the experiences and application of these ideas by the Waldorf or other schools?

A lot of Jewish administrators/teachers rely on the argument that our mesorah is all we really need. Fine. But it bothers me that (a) they don't know or recognize that many well-known educational approaches share roots with Jewish chinuch; and (b) they don't realize that people practicing elements of the mesorah in other contexts might have useful experiences that could be of benefit.

Oh, well! I suspect I'm preaching to converted here.