“It is a paradox of our digital future: brain development needs time and skilful play, work and action within the real world throughout the first 15 to 16 years. The result is the faculty of self-control and self-thinking, which is fundamental for media competence. The authors of this book, all specialists, offer practical advice for age-appropriate brain stimulation, encouraging teachers and parents to find ways to protect their children from the unnecessary and damaging too early use of electronic devices. They advise helping children develop their unique creativity and to learn how to learn out of own initiative.”
– Dr. Michaela Glöckler, Pediatrician (from the back cover of Glöckler and Carter, 2019)
As part of our special character, we work with digital technologies in a way that aligns with the living and evolving tradition of Steiner education. Our planning and decision making is grounded in our positive working knowledge of anthroposophy.
We will prepare our students to meet the world, which is increasingly digitalised, yet, part of this preparation means a healthy, balanced curriculum and pedagogy which uses digital technology at the right age, in right proportion and right relationship with the needs of the developing, whole human being and the school as social organism. Our school rules help to shape our Steiner education.
BYOD / personal laptops for Class 11 and Class 12 are acceptable for learning purposes. Teachers will use their discretion about when Class 11 and 12 students can use, or not use, their personal laptops in their lesson.
Some students, from Class 8 upwards, may have laptops as part of their Individual Education Plans. This information is provided by the SENCO to the teachers.
Our approach to digital technology requires Steiner teachers to make highly conscious decisions about when, and crucially why and how, to create learning opportunities with digital technology that complements and protects our distinctive educational philosophy which expresses itself in our teaching methods, curriculum and teacher being.
To quote the authors (2019) of the NZ Steiner-Waldorf Digital Technology Curriculum:
“Digital technology is an integral part of twenty-first century human endeavour, and it empowers us in manifold ways. Complex technologies present many new ways of learning and working, often by sidestepping time and space and locating us in an infinite network of here and now. However, these remarkable extensions to our lives present challenges to educators as we try to assess which digital technologies are advantageous and, in an educational context, pedagogically appropriate.
It is the task of teachers in Steiner/Waldorf primary schools to lay the foundation for lifelong learning through a uniquely human and richly choreographed education. As the students’ journey continues into high school, they easily learn to incorporate digital technologies effectively, creatively and ethically.”
