I agree with most of what you say. However, I disagree slightly on what you mention with regards to discrimination.
"A child won't automatically hate someone whose skin is different or who is a different gender. That seed has to be planted."
There seems to be some evidence that even very young babies have a bias toward someone with their own accent. Apparently, accent trumps skin colour, which might surprise some. I presume because someone with the same accent is likely to be part of your family or close community regardless of their colour. Do they hate those with different accents? Probably not, but it does appear that that original seed might in fact be a biological plant. Of course, this doesn't take away from the fact that what goes on after this is learned.
Oh and p.s, my son attended a similar Steiner school. It was set up in an ad-hoc fashion with children from a variety of backgrounds The main reason being an attempt to put children in chairs as the school did not yet have the numbers coming through from the kindergarten to sustain it fully. Wonderful school.
Carolyn
That's interesting. I guess it's not something we'd remember. I had family members with different accents and these days bilingual families are probably more common than they would have been many moons ago. I'd also say that we may find strong accents uncomfortable as we can struggle to understand them.
I believe there is also evidence that we tend to gravitate towards people more like ourselves when among strangers, but like you say, this doesn't mean we hate those not like us.
I probably appreciate the school I went to more since having my own children and experiencing the public school system.