Waldorf education has always appealed to a long list of famous parents in the arts. To name drop a few: George Lucas, Paul Newman, Carly Simon, Rosie O’Donnell, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Tilda Swinton.
Here in Toronto it has also appealed to many of us from the film industry, theatre and literary circles. From my own experience working in the film industry on a few great shows such as Good Will Hunting down to the iconic Half Baked(what can I say) it was clear that creativity was the key to success. And I am not talking about imagination but disciplined creativity. This does not require that a child watch more TV or play video games. Those activities are clearly passive and will not develop the skills required to imagine, conceptualize and deliver an original script or story or even a new medium.
When you work in film it is also abundantly clear that a lot of what we are making is crap that is designed to get children to comsume more and more junk and pester their parents mercilessly until they cave in. And so the same goes with hi-tech.
As my nieces from LA noted at Terroni’s one night, that even though a family with three kids, one was under two, each had hand held devices, they still made a racket, knocked over their drinks, fought and got out of their seats.
Another interesting experience occurred on a family holiday to Mexico in the hotel lounge. Four large families had gathered near our group and all their children were sitting quietly next to each other playing their own solitary computer games. The parents started playing a card game called Wizard. It just so happens that my youngest who was 7 years old lat the time, loves the game and joined in with the adults. There was laughter, conversation, trickery, elation, defeat but it did not include their 6 children. They simply did not interact.
Which brings me to the latest NY Times article on Waldorf Education. No longer is it just the film industry sending their kids to Waldorf but the hi-tech gurus themselves. You gotta love it! Waldorf education has stayed true to the needs of the child for almost 100 years and it has not led them astray. Despite the trends in each new generation, it works. One has to choose whether they want to support the profit margins of the hi-tech companies and waste valuable funds on equipment that can at best be only regarded as a mediocre tool or invest in educational pedagogies that respect and support passionate and creative teachers that understand child development.
More articles of interest:
A ground-breaking article in Scientific American, The Death of Preschool, lends full support to the Waldorf approach in the early years. Although the article does not mention Waldorf, all the research quoted as beneficial to childhood development supports what we do and how we do it.
This article is going viral as we speak. Please follow the link to get a preview of the article: The Death of Preschool, Scientific American Magazine
A great book my friends at Savvymom recommended to me and has been our bible for watching film classics:
Best Old Movies for Families: A Guide to Watching Together By Ty Burr
Jen Deathe
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