Why there is no tech in the lower grades of Steiner schools

I spent the night at Ma's house. It was nice because the boys were here too and we just hung out and had pizza for dinner. It is the simple things. I have come to adore the simple things. 

This morning I got up and had petan chok and then made myself a cup of tea. I did some FB-ing and now I am blogging. It is interesting, I was reading about how some Silicon Valley social media pioneers have now become conscientious objectors to things like FB and Snapchat. They now limit wi-fi time in their houses and there are these articles all over the place about techcy parents sending their children to schools with no digital.

So, why does the Steiner school say tech is not for younger children? Here is the reason why. We learned all about it in our teacher training. Here we go:

As part of our teacher training, we did a weekend on vision and television. We looked at how sight is an illusion. This can be done with numerous experiments on colour, which we did. Looking at the colour spectrum as well as the way light falls at different times of the day to create sunsets and sunrises. Then we did how an image is put together.

This is much easier to see in a printed image. The printed image is not made up of a single sheet of colour. Instead, it is made up of mixes of colours. In a newspaper it is made up of pixels. These pixels are put together through our mind. It is therefore an illusion. You could even say this about how we see anything. We must remember that a lot of what we is only comes together in our mind. However, with things like motion and films and even computer screens, what you have is a very high frequency of images, flashing at your at an incalculable number of times a second. Anyone who edits will know this. You can stop a film and pick out your image. Then you can go on to the next image. A child's simple flip book will give the illusion of movement. 

The eye receives and the brain therefore digests. This digestion does do things - first it makes your unnecessarily hungry - this is why people often end up eating in front of the TV or at films. Your brain is digesting and giving the feeling of being hungry to your body which then, of course wants to consume. The other thing that happens is that because your brain works so hard to put all these images together, it uses up lots of energy and therefore, after a binge session you never feel relaxed, you feel exhausted. You have been mentally work hard at it. The visual image is also a cold one. There is no warmth in a visual image and when you watch something, it is very different from being told a story where you are creating the images inside your own mind. Because of the prevalence of Disney, in many parts of the world Snow White is Snow White. We cannot see her as anything else except with a bob and a ribbon tied through her hair. However, take for instance, a less well known story, like the Frog Prince. The Princess there will look different in each person's hearing of it. She will be wearing a different dress and when she has a tantrum she will be having a different kind of tantrum.

This activity is even harder for younger children. When they are in our school, they have a break from the constant bombardment of sights and sounds. There is a respite for them. They get to exercise their imaginations, they get to be creative. 

When the internet first came out, I remember someone saying how wonderful it was now that his son could copy and paste Michelangelo's paintings into his homework. I was actually disgusted at this. Is this the sum total of creativity? Cutting and pasting? How is your some supposed to learn about proportion and perception if he never does it himself. Instead, from the youngest age you are teaching him to be a plagiarist.  I don't remember if I replied to this, but this is the danger, that we are so seduced by tech that we can't see the wood from the trees. 

And it is now the case that people who INVENTED these applications are now saying, actually, look here, I think what we did was wrong. It has seriously, or is seriously compromising who we are as human beings. I wonder when the education system is going to catch up. In my experience, people don't like admitting they are wrong, so the horse will be well an truly flogged long after it is dead. Plus they have spent millions and millions on iPads and white interactive boards - what are they going to do with all that equipment? 

It is now also showing that FB is the equivalent of heroin. the dopamine hit which you receive is the same as taking drugs. Get out and start running if you need your hit instead of going to FB. I am certainly going to do that now. This year I had this mad fling with teach - it is now over. It is back to the outdoors for me.