Waldorf schools do not use technology until sixth grade. They want their students to experience nature,
“A strict, private Waldorf school might not have even accepted the devices. For more than 100 years, Waldorf schools have emphasized child development over skill development.
“Instead of plastic dolls with detailed faces, for example, young children in a Waldorf environment play with toys made of natural materials, such as wood, silk, wool and cotton — that are unformed enough to stimulate the imagination. Schools encourage creative play and artistic expression; students often stay with the same teacher three years or more.
“Some parents who subscribe to Waldorf methods don’t let their children use technology at all; others limit screen time.”
Yet, the Ocean Charter School, a Waldorf school, was gifted by the Los Angeles Unified School District, with an iPad for every student, whether they want it or not. After al, they will need the iPads for Common Core testing. Curiously, the devices cost $768 each, more that the retail price.
The iPad giveaway is a pilot run on the district’s $1 billion planned purchase.
The part that puzzles me most is the cost. If the cost for Los Angeles alone is $1 billion, what will be the cost for the nation? $50 billion? $100 billion? No wonder the big tech corporations are thrilled with the Common Core.. And since the devices and the content will be obsolete in three years, how many more billions will leave America’s classrooms to pay for new technology?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
To click “like” is blasphemous. The whole rip-off of the Common Core borders on criminal as it forces parents and students to accept a teaching style that is unnatural for children’s brain growth and causes them untold anxiety. It’s anti-children at the core.
yup
This is an ad for Cornerstone Schools in Detroit:
Take note of how big the classes are and how the kids eyes never leave the screens. I think the rows of really little kids staring at screens with head phones on, divided from one another, is kind of sad. I read that they do well on standardized tests, although one never knows of course, what with all the gaming of test scores.
I’d have to pull my son out of school if this is adopted by public schools. I just don’t think rows of kids staring at screens wearing headphones is an environment that is good for small children, six hours a day. Seems like a risky experiment to me.
Seeing kids ‘learning’ like this makes me sick! These kids strike me as already coming from homes where they had a good start to begin with! It is especially sad then that their parents are subjecting them to digital ‘learning’!
Thanks for sharing this clip.
This is another example of how crazy it is to argue that these iPads are a “civil rights” issue. Anyone who really believes that is either naïve or incompetent or both. How do LA’s leaders justify supplying them to an affluent charter school that fund-raises close to half a million dollars a year from parents alone? And how many more wealthy charter schools, like Palisades High School, will be given these toys to comply with a state law (Prop 39) designed to line the pockets of the charter operators?
If every class were outfitted with these, the cost would go over $1 Trillion I think pretty easily.
Seeing kids ‘learning’ like this makes me sick! These kids strike me as already coming from homes where they had a good start to begin with! It is especially sad then that their parents are subjecting them to digital ‘learning’!
Thanks for sharing this clip.
Children learn from humans. Technology is a tool, not a teacher. My mom was right when she said all this focus on computers in the classroom is a of resources. How do we stop this madness?
The devices cost so much because they come with preloaded, canned curricula and controls to ensure that they will be PUSH devices for delivery of that curricula, and that curricula only.
For millennia, people have dreamed of a repository of all knowledge freely accessible by anyone. One of the Ptolemies established the Library of Alexandria. Various scholars, throughout history, conceived of encyclopedias–Pliny, Isidore of Seville, Diderot. H.G. Wells dreamed, in 1937, of a universally accessible “world brain” (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/World_Brain). Truman’s Science Adviser, Vannevar Bush, dreamed of having the knowledge of the world available via magnetic cards on a machine called the Memex (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/303881/). Richard Feynmann imagined storing all the knowledge of the world on a device the size of a sugar cube (http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/feynman.html). Now, in the age of the Internet, that age-old dream of free, universal access to knowledge has been realized. Kids can go onto Dr. Math and get answers to their math questions for free. Hundreds of professors have uploaded complete, free textbooks to the Net. A kid who wants to find out about rattlesnakes or Hammurabi can go onto the Net and find thousands of resources, absolutely free. And, because pixels are cheap, small entrepreneurs could easily create and upload curricula for a nominal charge. Something had to be done about that to protect the education monopolies. The solution? Create a set of national standards that all curricula would have to be aligned to. Create gateways, such as locked computers and the inBloom database, through which curricula would have to flow. Control the access and charge a great deal of money for that access.
A computer for every kid. Great goal, if you happen to be the biggest supplier of operating systems and office software for personal computers! And, if you can sell a database of responses and computer-adaptive curricula related to those response, even better yet! That’s worth trillions over time. A few million dollars’ investment in national standards to make it all possible pales by comparison to the potential take.
I, personally, would like to see a computer for every kid. But those computers should be unlocked (subject to some reasonable filtering of illegal and extremely morally objectionable material). The Net should be a PULL medium for making the knowledge resources of the world available to kids, not a PUSH medium for ensuring that the Microsofts and Walmarts of U.S. education can be secure in their monopolies.
Thoughtful response. Made some excellent points, especially the one about the technology not being used to push curriculum.
Your comments are spot on.
I just don’t get the big push for iPads in schools. I can’t imagine that they are not distracting and time wasting ( getting them charged, making sure all the kids are on the same app, et)… I think that it wastes time, energy and resources that could be best spent elsewhere.
iPads are really bad for all-over brain development, and likely do damage when kids are using them at a very young age. Brains blossom when all senses are involved in learning. With iPads just one finger is used 😦
I teach in Idaho where most districts are starved for cash. Superintendent Luna and the Idaho legislature, its infinite wisdom, set aside 3 million for competitive technology grants. The middle school I teach in got nearly a third of that. One school. Every teacher and every kid got a Chromebook. Don’t get me wrong; I love that our school has this technology. But why now? Why when Idaho schools are generally so under- and inequitably funded? And aren’t the Waldorf schools attended by a significant number of Silicon Valley workers? I am vexed.
There is a time and place for everything. It is important for our kids to be tech savvy, but it is also crucial that they be able to work together as a team to accomplish class goals. Plus they need time to develop as children. All computers all the time is not the answer.
I have nothing against iPads as a TOOL to be developed to enhance education. The key words are “to be developed”. Programs need to be developed, teachers need to be trained, usage needs to be piloted. Throwing an iPad at every student without having a plan for their use is crazy. Take a grade in several schools and explore the potential. Then get back to us with the results.
How can “Collage and Career” readiness be identified in these Waldorfians without “big government imposed standards and high stakes tests? ” Oh that’s right, kids who go to Waldorf schools are the children of the privledged and powerful. They do not need Barack Obama, Arne Duncan and Chris Christie to mandate the type of schooling they get. Waldorfians get an education instead.
Galton makes a very good point.
The westside of LA, where Ocean Charter is located, is becoming two distinct school systems: The one that attracts middle class and affluent kids doesn’t have to play by the same rules as the one for the 70% poor–mostly minority–kids.
It’s unfortunate but understandable that these families opt out of LAUSD’s narrowing curriculum. They need a classroom aide, an art teacher or a librarian? No problem! Have a silent auction and raise $100,000.
That giant sucking sound is the mass exodus of middle class families fleeing a bone-headed bureaucracy that mandates one-size-fits-all “solutions” like an iPad for every student.
Well, yes, Waldofrians definitely get an education, of sorts. But this IS a school philosophy that actively delays and discourages “early” reading (anything before Grade 2) and prohibits the use of black crayons since the color is alien to life.
John Dewey was opposed to teaching reading before grade 2.
Children in Finland don’t start school until age 7.
This is not an unusual philosophy.
When I saw this post I immediately thought of this New York Times article that I read about how Silicon Valley parents choose technology-free Waldorf schools for their children.
A Silicon Valley School That Doesn’t Compute
How can a charter school, which purportedly honors the parents’ choices, force technology on a child whose parents have chosen the school specifically because of a desire to have a technology-free classroom? The cognitive disconnect is screaming.
It shows the hollowness of “choice” doesn’t it? There is no point to “choice” if the different schools aren’t allowed to establish and maintain a coherent pedagogical approach that brings something new to the table. If districts can’t keep themselves from micromanaging…and disrupting teacher-led programs…then they might as well not offer any “choice” at all. Once again, the wealthiest parents who can afford an independent school will be the only ones with a true choice. All others are provided with a superficial choice…as if effective pedagogical approaches are as interchangeable as a brand of toothpaste.
Speaking of brands, I wonder what independent Waldorf schools have to say about this? It may come to pass that if students in Waldorf-inspired charter schools are using Pearson content on iPads they will have to come up with another name for their schools because the Waldorf approach is intended to foster interactive educational experiences and de-emphasize mediated learning. Unlike Montessori, Waldorf owns rights to the “brand”.
Wait another minute! LAUSD is giving ipads away to private school kids when their own students don’t have them. Where is the outrage? Oh, right. We live in Los Angeles where people are too stupid to know that this is a crime against taxpayers.
The school that received the iPads is a charter school so the students are not considered “private school kids” but rather students in LAUSD.
And let’s not forget the Pearson software that’s part of the package. Got a cost from the district last night – it will cost about $60m a year after the initial three year license runs out. And that’s just for two subjects – English and Math. They still have to buy textbooks for the other subjects. It’s all a giant hustle. The Shock Doctrine at work. Disrupt and defund.
Don’t kids already spend too much time in front of some kind of screen at home? Now they are subjected to more screen time at school.
They say that early language skills is a precursor to academic/career success. It’s no wonder we are experiencing an increase in behavior problems. Kids don’t have time to use language to negotiate, compromise, and connect to others. Kids in kindergarten get screeen time instead of play time. You know they are practicing to keyboard at that early age. I also read somewhere that writing supercedes typing when it involves learning and memory.
I can’t imagine that all kids fit this model of learning–at their own pace on a computer program. Not all kids are motivated or independent learners. When I did my masters online, it took a heavy dose of discipline and motivation. It’s hard to believe that all parents would allow online learning at home let alone at school.
Furthermore, how are the ones behind the pack (learning at their own pace) supposed to benefit at the end and pass the high-stakes tests if they are not keeping pace. Technology can’t solve or hurry human development. Technology takes away the element of human interaction which is critical in sustaining a civil society. It’s not just about the money we spend on it, but the damage it is doing to make us less human.
This is crazy. It should be very worrying to both general public schools and charters of all stripes that this school, which has a defined pedagogical approach vis a vis “screens”, was not able to follow that over the requirement they take the iPads. If this school can’t say “no thank you” what does a school without an existing approach do? Most schools lie somewhere on the slippery slope towards developmentally inappropriate use of technology. If a district is willing and able to walk all over the one with a firm line in the sand (a line that the district itself approved when it approved its charter BTW) how likely is it that other schools will be allowed any discretion at all?
iPads are an innovation and an important element in public EDICATION for a number of reasons. Believe it or not, these tablets are an economically viable advantage . It costs more for a high school books for one year than it does to buy this overpriced. IPad. To be fair Insuspect the amount is supposed cover high quality cases that keep the unit safe , and it imay also include the cabinets they are kept in ,which sync and charge as well as provide security. The money saved on text book, reference books, art supplies, paper, agendas, novels coupled with the built in utilities ( cameras, art apps.audio, recorders, video acesss, editing tools, word processor, power point, search engines , .. A lot of stuff that isn’t games or YouTube, stuff you can take where you go inline 200 pounds of books a complete art kit, or a tuba . It is unfortunate that iPads, by far the best one of all for this job has to shoulder the blame for human frailty
These are iPod for kids, who intuitively understand them . As some of you noted,mvery young minds are open and in bloom. That s why they can be immersed in a new language and pick it up,so fast. I DI agree that the primary grade should not be reliant on iPads for many reasons, most notably they must learn to read and write the old school,way.
By letting iPads be reward for them,schools can probably have apostive influence on that dark passage through middles schools where social promotion and hormones take students into the fray.
With this said, it appalls me that LAUSD officials model much an irresponsible and reckless work ethic. . With this lack of preparation & planning, their incompetence is clear, and if their agenda is not corrupt, why can’t they reassure us with an explicit account of what costs , commitment and options are!? We are trusting these suits with billions of dollars ,our childrens’ future and thus far we only know the Measure Q is meant for brick and mortar, that Deasy is dishonest and we can’t use the tablets or the apps for Comon core because true to form, Pearson, like Deasy, makes this big deal and fails to follow through.
The banked questions, sub standard content, iffy programs, dubious test data and this unseemly mandate for technology to use a common core reeks like a RICO charge , but for whatever reason, school officials are above the law, which means Deasy can probably bankrupt LA, refer to his tenure there as an outstanding success and win the appointment to Sec of ED where he will probably reinvent the wheel again.
In the 90s Jobs gave away computers to schools an colleges,not only could it be written off, it was a sound marketing move. Apple could give LAUSD a break on the costs and still come out ahead because thee kids will want iPads and the programs they
Earned on.
A good supe would never squanders so much money liwithout considering options like a grant, foundation gifts ,,mhandouts from his philanthropists pals , an option where parents could pitch in for the schools’ bank of iPads, carwashes or with fundraisers on line . In LA there is a lot of money and Deasy is swimming among the sharks who got it well it is ours or it was
Thank you for reminding us that Apple (Jobs) built its market and countered Microsoft by assisting educators.
A Waldorf school that uses computers can no longer call itself “Waldorf” as it would be violating one of the strongest tenets of its founder, Rudolf Steiner. He believed that under a certain age, exposure to machines was harmful to the souls of children and caused permanent damage.