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Do Computers Belong in a K through 5 Waldorf School?
To answer the question: Do computers have a place in educating children in K-5 in a Waldorf School (or for any school for that matter)? Other questions must first be asked: What is the purpose of education? What are the specific developmental needs of children of this age? What is gained by computer use and consequently what is lost? What is the purpose of the teacher and what are there side effects of using such technology?
“Education must have something of the process of healing,” Rudolf Steiner said.
Rudolf Steiner saw that the human being comes into this life not as just some genetically created bio mass that needs to be filled up with knowledge to survive in this world, but as a spiritual being with a wisdom beyond every teacher’s understanding, and when we enter the world of matter and incase ourselves in this flesh there is an illness if you will, a dis-ease. Just as St. Christopher felt a heavy burden carrying the Christ child through the flooding waters, because, as the Child explained, he was feeling the weight of the world; so, too, do we feel the same when we enter earthly existence. If this is true, then as Waldorf teachers we must ask ourselves: Is what I am giving the children something that helps bring back that state of wholeness and unity, and lightness of being? Additionally, the child is seen as three-fold, a willing (doing), feeling and thinking entity, with each aspect developing at different times. The will forces begin developing during the first 7 years, the feeling forces begin the next 7 years and thinking commences when puberty sets in.
So as Waldorf teachers our curriculum is designed to meet those developmental needs to help create healthy, well-rounded children. In order to meet the needs of the first seven years healthy activities and play that has the children move imaginatively are given. A kindergarten is like an ideal household of play and work, with hands getting dirty, taste buds delighted by healthy food, and an aesthetic surrounding gently bringing beauty to the eyes. As this is the Waldorf focus, placing a child, for whatever reason, in front of a computer with its invasive light has no place in a kindergarten.
In regards to the lower grades, while the will forces are still worked with now the emphasis is on the heart, the feeling and the development of an appreciation for beauty. Everything is to be brought forth artistically and imaginatively, leaving abstract concepts for the years of puberty when developmentally children are ready for abstract thinking. While graphic artists might argue that they can do work artistically as in any medium, there is a big difference between having a child prepare her paper and get her watercolors ready and smell the pigments and perhaps get her clothes splattered when painting, than it is to move a plastic mouse around, clicking clip art or clicking on different colors. The first is visceral while the later is as sterile as using an Etch-a-Sketch. In terms of writing, a teacher can learn much about a child by looking at his handwriting as well as making a concentrated effort to groom good writing and handwriting skills. Writing through the word processor shows nothing of the inner aspect of the child, only his writing skills.
Even with child development aside there is brain research that Joseph Chilton Pearce, author of Magical Child and many books, has compiled to show how brain development occurs. He cites research “dating all the way back to the early 1960's when it was discovered that kids' minds go catatonic in front of the "tube." This has to do with the way that the brain reacts to radiant light, which is the light source of television and computer monitors, and reflected light, which is what brings us the rest of our visual experience.” Research shows that radiant light bypasses the higher parts of the brain, the frontal lobes, and stimulates directly the ‘hind” or “reptilian brain,” where fight and flight holds sway. While content does have an impact on the minds of children, the medium itself has a detrimental effect on the brain development of the child. He cites some research on this matter:
“Here's one example that demonstrates how computers can have the same debilitating effects on the mind that television has. Researchers took a single page from a fourth grade level textbook that had explanatory writing and a couple of diagrams or pictures on it and asked three groups of people to review the information. Group A was given the piece of paper itself to study. Group B was shown a movie of the page, and group C viewed it on a television screen - which is exactly the same as a computer monitor. Twenty minutes later they tested them on their comprehension and retention of the material. Group A, who held a paper copy in their hands, averaged a retention level of 85%. Those who saw it on the movie screen had a retention level of between 25 to 30%, and those who studied it on the TV monitor had a retention and comprehension level between 3 and 5%. When they mixed the groups up and tested them again with different pages from the book, in every case the retention and comprehension was identical. This again has to do with how the brain is constructed and the way it responds to radiant light rather than reflected light as a source of information.”
What are other side effects from the use of computers? Let’s look at how many hours a day our children are exposed to machines, from driving to and from school, listening to the radio, Ipod, video games, home computers, television (hopefully not so much in our Waldorf schools), the surrounding city and even the buzz of the home, there is little respite from modern technology. Why add to this burden? Why not make the classroom a healing refuge from the intrusive machines. There is no warmth from a machine for a child to encounter, just a cold keyboard and mouse with a glaring screen. Steve Talbott, the author of “The Future Does Not Compute: Transcending the Machines in Our Midst,” holds a similar view to Pearce in that machines cannot replace the relationship of teacher and student. How can a child grow up into a healthy human by having machines as mentors and how can a teacher who stands in front of the children teaching subtly about the world and who we are compete with such flashy technology? “To learn, a child must find an inner connection to the subject at hand. This is not the same thing as experiencing a ‘cool’ sensation or a powerful emotional jolt. Screen images, as long as they are continually pushed toward the new and unexpected, readily produce such jolts. But the pleasure of mere unexpectedness is not the same thing as an inner connection. It is more like a drug that calls for a steadily increasing dose. On the other hand, a fellow human being with whom the child already shares an inner landscape can help the child spin the threads of meaningful connection to the surrounding world.”
In our modern psyche we have the image of visiting aliens with large heads, big eyes, slits for nostrils and mouths, sexless, and spindly limbs, who sometimes abduct humans and cannot understand the emotional response of the abductees. Carl Jung saw the UFO phenomenon as a projection of the group unconscious. Perhaps this is our own projection as a cry for help as these aliens are what we are turning our children into? Computer use only stimulates the head and connects the children only to facts and ideas. Only the visual and auditory senses are engaged. Nature and human relationships are not present when at the computer. The body could be in great hunger but can be easily ignored as hours pass unnoticed. When a child is operating in the real world, where people are involved time is so much slower and the student even has to wait at times, not instantly gratified as she would with the quickness of a machine. Also, how easy it is to delete what one does not like as one can with a machine. Are human relationships like that? Is it a coincidence that as technology has become so ubiquitous long-lasting marriages are becoming something of legends?
Then there is the question about why we are teaching? As a Waldorf teacher Steiner set it up that the class teacher moves through the grades learning along with the students. The teacher is asked to put her soul into her teaching—to be conscious, creative. Even having copy machines available to quickly copy some worksheets is indeed very handy and gives a lot of skill time for the students (and certainly does give us teachers a break!). But how conscious is it? It certainly is not creative. How much of the teacher’s soul went into that lesson? Now, if computers are added to the mix (and eventually in the not too distant future, virtual reality), where will the teacher’s creative forces be?
Computers are a tool; just like calculators. In the elementary years students are not given calculators. They are taught to think first. There is a big difference between plugging in numbers on a machine and doing calculations with the brain. Just go to any store and watch young people panic when the cash registers go out and they have to add and subtract and take 20% off for sale items. Besides, the Waldorf curriculum is designed to recapitulate human history and it is only in 8th grade that our modern world is studied. That is why computers are generally not introduced to the children until they understand all the technologies that have led up to the computer. So if the computer must come into the school let it be in the high school or the earliest in 8th grade, when abstract thinking is appropriate for the students and we have reached the modern world in our curriculum.
With that said, there is a Bantu creation story, that Betty Staley included in her book, “Hear the Voice of the Griot,” that tells of the First People who were tricked by the Evil One. The Evil One had these machine-like servants who did everything for the people at one point, even to the point of masticating their food for them. So lazy and useless the First People became they were eventually removed by a cataclysm by the Creator.
Bibliography
Steiner, Rudolf, (1983). Deeper Insights into Education: The Waldorf Approach. Spring Valley New York: Anthroposophic Press
Mercogliano, Chris and Debus, Kim (1999). An Interview with
Joseph Chilton Pearce. Journal of Family Life, Vol. 5 #1
Talbott, Stephen L. (1997) Meetings with a Snake. Originally published in the March, 1997 Research Bulletin of the Waldorf Education Research Institute. http://natureinstitute.org/txt/st/snake.htm
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