Complaint Review: Blue Bird House - Southfield Michigan

 I stand by everything I have stated and more.  We looked at many preschools together before we decided to send our child to the blue bird house.  This is a warning i wish i could have read and I hope to help other parents.  Perhaps i can start finding other parents whom i know were upset with this school and have them post, just as Karen and the Group have found their friends to write.  I will never stop stating the facts of that situation.  My parents were hippies and I found Blue Bird house to be a negative situation and I heard the same thing from other parents as well.  Today there is too much power struggle being placed upon children.  I have been a teacher for over sixteen years to all ages!!!!!  Don't let these people nor the Waldorf system near your children!!!!  Again I stand by EVERY COMMENT!

I stumbled upon this terrible review of Karen's pre-school,  The Bluebird House, and felt compelled to refute it; simply because none of it is true.   Both my children attended Karen's Waldorf inspired pre-school.  After pre-school they did not continue with a Waldorf education, but I can assure you that sending them to her pre-school was one of the best gifts I gave my children. 

Every morning they were greeted with open and loving arms.  My children couldn't wait to go to "school."  They learned through play and acquired fine tuned motor skills through hands on learning like, baking, building, gardening, knitting and so many other fun activities that you do not find in conventional pre-schools.  This is not your traditional classroom, this is Waldorf learning at its best.  In a world today, that is fast paced, where cell phones constantly beep,  computers blink and TV's are never turned off; the Bluebird House is a safe haven from these distractions. This is a place where children can be children; where they are allowed to climb a tree, hammer a nail or stir a pot of soup. 

For me, Waldorf education is simplistic, yet rigid without seeming rigid.  There are schedules or daily rythms that are followed that give children the comfort of knowing.  Karen fosters wonderment and encourages children to experiment under a watchul eye.  Beautiful stories,  puppet plays, songs and dancing are big part of this learning.  Children grow up so fast today, and Karen has a knack for perpetuating that magical sparkle of innocence that is often lost so quickly today.

Both my children are very well adjusted and i attribute some of that to their early  with Karen.  They are both creative, inquisitive and doing well in high school.  Although, they may not remember much about their pre-school, once in awhile a Waldorf moment peaks though.  Just yesterday, I heard my 16 year old daughter ask her brother if he wanted to go to, "Fairy Land," and pick blue berries.  This is a little spot in our woods that they dubbed, Fairy Land," when they were 3 and 4.  Back then they picked blue beriies for  fairies and now they pick blue beries for pancakes.  They love nature, respect life, adults, eachother and are just great kids and I know, I owe some of it to the magic of the Bluebird House. 

 My son attended Bluebird House for 2 years and he benefitted greatly from the nurturing environment and variety of activities that Bluebird House offers.  I never felt that my son was not safe.  Physical outdoor play is always supervised and neither my son,  nor I ever witnessed physical conflict.  There seemed to be far fewer behavioral issues at Bluebird House than at other daycares my son attended.  There are no occult activities taking place at Bluebird House.  With regard to physical play,  I never saw children climbing any higher than a few feet from the ground and the children were not forced to climb anything if they did not want to. 

If they were afraid to climb down from something after climbing up of their own vollition, the teaches would talk them down.  I am certain that if a child were really going to fall, that they would have been rescued.  But most of the time, they just need to develop a little more confidence in themselves and that is a very important lesson for this World.  I experienced my son's growth into a healthy, confident, well rounded child, ready for school.  He was allowed to explore his world within his own limits and he expanded those limts within reasonable bounds.  He developed socially and phyiscally in a positive way as a result of the time he spent at Bluebird house. 

Hello.  I am founder and lead teacher at Bluebird House.  I know the person who wrote this report, a father several years ago at the school.  I am sorry to hear how disappointed he was in Bluebird House.  I am actually very gentle with parents and respect their freedom to make choices for their child and family.  In this case the mother and father were at odds.  The father came to some of the parent-teacher conferences, but it is obvious to me now that he didn't express all that he was thinking and feeling.  I could have held a separate conference with him, to make sure he felt free to express himself fully.  I am sorry for any lack of sensitivity on my part in this relationship.

I do feel the need to rebut some of his statements, to make sure Bluebird House is not misrepresented.

Waldorf teachers are not hungry for money; they are paid far less than public school teachers and work very hard. If money was what they were after, there are far easier ways.

Children at Bluebird House are not forced to climb trees and there is a boundary how high they are allowed to go.  If they do climb,ask for help getting down, and are not in any danger, we "talk" them down so they learn to do it on their own, learning confidence and independence.  Sometimes a child will call out to a parent to help them, and parents may be encouraged to hold off and allow the child to work with the situation.  Most parents welcome this input, but this parent's feeling that he was being oppressed is another indication that we were not on the same page; better communication between us might have helped.  I never heard from this parent a request NOT to allow his son to climb trees. 

This parent trimmed trees at Bluebird House; there were dead limbs that needed taking care of. I don't recall if any branches were trimmed that I didn't intend to have trimmed. If so, I may have communicated this to him, but I don't think that would qualify as treating someone poorly.  I heard nothing from him at the time about any problem.

I was not present during the fighting incident, nor know the nature of the conflict. I am confident that my assistant would not stand by while a child was being harmed.  It sounds like it was handled in a more confrontive manner than what I would have done.  The father's feelings can be respected. Afterward, any communication about why the teacher would have given more time for the child to work with the situation could have been communicated. There is no constructive purpose for that kind of dispute between parent and teacher, especially in front of a child.

The lifestyle of people who work here are not the responsibility of the school nor reflected here.  Bluebird House is always clean and orderly.  Bluebird House has no knowledge of or responsibility for decisions made in someone's home, aside from suspected abuse, unless they are brought up in parent teacher conferences or brought to my attention in some other way.  I have no way of representing the home situation, but the claim seems uncharacteristic of the mother and my assistant.

The State of Michigan licensing representive said she had no suggestions for the imporvement of my program, and highly approved all the time the children have for movement, physical challenges, outdoor play, crafts, storytelling, puppetry, practical work and free play.  She said the teachers were obviously in control in this well run program.

I will not further rebut any comments from this person. If anyone is interested in seeing what happens at Bluebird House, I suggest you come to visit and see for yourself, or talk to hundreds of other highly satisfied parents.  Again, I'm sorry I didn't reach out to this parent and resolve these issues when they were happening.