
A Silicon Valley School That Doesn’t Compute - lsr7
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/technology/at-waldorf-school-in-silicon-valley-technology-can-wait.html?hpw
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pessimist
“The idea that an app on an iPad can better teach my kids to read or do
arithmetic, that’s ridiculous.”

In my experience this may be empirically false. My 4 year old could barely
count, but after spending 2 months in the summer playing a couple of iPad
games, he's adding 2 digit numbers and subtracting 1 digit numbers, and doing
simple math puzzles. His elder brother couldnt do those till Kindergarten, and
I dont think the difference was aptitude.

~~~
ericd
Yeah, I learned my early math skills primarily by playing math games on a Mac
128k. That person doesn't know what they're talking about - interactive
teaching systems can be engaging in a way that pen/paper has no hope of
matching.

~~~
JEVLON
Playing "Maths Circus" and Lemmings on beige macs were the most powerful
educational tools for teachers to use as a reward for good work to get me to
perform well. Sadly that stopped a grade or two later, and my interest
dropped, and so did my performance.

Hopefully soon our computational freedoms for big actual work won't be
relegated to computer monitors. Laptops and tablets are great, but they make
you focus/stare at one area for a long time. There is often a wall behind that
monitor, we are basically staring at it, for many hours, most of my adult life
is staring at a wall.

<http://worrydream.com/KillMath/>

There's a Microsoft Research concept video that showed people interacting with
computational environments within their natural environment. Statistical
information could be represented for any data needed, and people were not
bound to their seats. Problem is, I don't see things being able to change much
for people that work in the terminal.

Basically, what I am trying to say with my thoughts is, the positives of both
worlds will interwine and the negatives of both will mostly disappear.

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nchuhoai
I think their are just approaching the problem from the wron side. They are
right in saying that the computer is being used wrong, but wrong in saying
that not using the computer is the solution. I'm more in alignment with what
Mr Wolfram from WolframAlpha is saying: Computers can helkp you with tasks
that are repetitive and inhuman, you should learn what is needed to solve a
problem efficiently. That is actually more in alignment with what the Waldorf
system says: Creativity through hands-on. Denying kids access to technology is
just stupid, because if you think about your own life: Doesn't technology make
it easier and more efficient to get things done?

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Aloisius
Maybe they don't let students use computers because when you search for
information about the Waldorf schools, you get all sorts of stuff about them
being some kind of cult.

In my admittedly limited research, I found information about astral bodies,
Atlantis, soul nourishment, clairvoyance and and a dislike of the left handed.

From the Skeptic's Dictionary:

 _Waldorf schools reflect Steiner's education theories, which hold that
children advance through three stages....during the first stage, birth to age
7, the spirit inhabiting the body of the child is still adjusting to its
surroundings, hence lower grades in Waldorf school offer minimal academic
content. Reading is not introduced until second or third grade. During the
second stage, ages seven to 14, children are said to be driven primarily by
imagination and fantasy, so students are introduced to mythology. After age
14, the third stage, an astral body is believed to be drawn into the physical
body, creating the onset of puberty._

~~~
Cushman
Waldorf schools are based on some crazy-nutty voodoo philosophy.

They also, more or less coincidentally, work really, really well.

~~~
gruseom
_more or less coincidentally_

That's too easy. How can we know that? On the contrary, it would be surprising
if how well the schools work were unrelated to their philosophy.

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gruseom
My sister-in-law has taught at a Waldorf school for years. The school the
article describes sounds typical. Waldorf is actually based on an extremely
deviant philosophy. They get away with it because they deliver results. In
particular, their kids routinely decimate all standardized tests.

~~~
nightski
Hmmm. Kids from affluent families who likely have highly educated parents
working at high tech companies do well on standardized tests created to cover
the entire spectrum of children? nowai

~~~
gruseom
Please don't interject that kind of rudeness here. The school my sister-in-law
teaches at has little in common with your demographic description. It's bland
middle class with mild (very mild) alternative tendencies. What it has in
common with the school in the article is basic Waldorf principles: eschewing
technology in the early grades, emphasis on imagination and handwork and so
on. The Silicon Valley aspect of the article is a red herring, no doubt
because it's attention-getting, but perhaps also because the author doesn't
realize this is simply an instance of a type.

~~~
gruseom
Edit: I was unfair to the author. The article clearly discusses Waldorf
schools as a type.

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wollw
There seems to be a false dichotomy being made between hands on education and
the use of technology in the classroom that bothers me a bit; why should they
be separated? I see no reason why a collaborative, hands on approach to
education is precluded by the use of technology.

The developers of Racket (formerly PLT Scheme) have an after school program
called Program by Design (<http://programbydesign.org/>) and one of the things
they found was that some of the students started wanting to learn _more_ math
because they needed to know how to add things to their programs! The extreme
view presented in this article seems to be based more upon fear of technology
than any kind of understanding of it.

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dcrankshaw
I went to this school for kindergarten through the first half of sixth grade.
Being an elementary school student I was less familiar with their guiding
philosophy than the actual execution. But I can say that they did some things
really well for an elementary school child, one of which was not burdening
their students with homework. This gave me free time to read everything I
could get my hands on, which I think has been incredibly valuable to my
development and later education.

But I left when we were covering fractions for the 3rd year in a row (when I
was in sixth grade), and I felt completely stifled and unchallenged. I have no
regrets that my parents sent me there, but at least when I was there, the
execution of the philosophy began to fall apart when I turned 10.

For some context, I am now a CS and Physics major and don't feel that an
unfamiliarity with computers when I was 8 hampered my math or computer skills
at all.

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paul
We send our kids to Waldorf inspired schools. Most schools (especially public
schools) give me a sense of dread, like a twelve year prison sentence would.
The Waldorf schools have a warm, human feel that actually makes me a little
jealous of my kids. I would rather my kids be raised as whole humans, not
little test-taking machines.

~~~
tricolon
Could the Waldorf schools be a reaction to the new concept of simply dumping
one's child at a school to be raised?

~~~
gruseom
The schools themselves have been going for about a hundred years, so they
aren't a reaction to it. Perhaps some parents are. I hope so. Unfortunately, I
think the social trend is the other way around. Where I live (Canada), debate
tends to center around how wonderful it would be if children could be raised
by day-care workers before being handed off to school workers, so the parents
can go be workers someplace else.

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pnathan
Well, there's a limit to the practical use of gadgets in the classroom.
Learning human interaction, motor skills, and other parts of being human are
best done with other humans.

It's also pretty clear to me that equating computing to the use of Word,
Excel, and Google leads one to the conclusion that computing is easy and not a
big deal to pick up. Naturally, as a software engineer, I disagree vehemently
with that.

I think that some level of _real_ (not turtle or other games) programming
should be taught from middle school on to the point where a HS grad can
successfully write a small program to deal with the small needs of life:
things like accounting, sophisticated searching for files, etc.

I believe - have faith - that a programming-enabled population can do some
pretty amazing things when set free to do them. All it takes is the knowledge
and the eyes to see what can be automated to do so.

~~~
stan_rogers
Please don't diss the turtle. I was too old for the Logo scene (by quite a
bit, actually) but I learned (and grokked) recursion reading an article about
Logo and turtle graphics. I made _Gödel, Escher, Bach_ a much easier read in
'80 than it would have been otherwise.

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schlichtm
I went to Waldorf for 10 years (preschool - 8th grade).

Didn't get a computer until I was 12.

Now > [http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2011/10/19/how-two-
te...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2011/10/19/how-two-teenagers-
broke-in-to-silicon-valley-and-the-music-industry/)

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Groxx
_“The idea that an app on an iPad can better teach my kids to read or do
arithmetic, that’s ridiculous.”_

Ugh. Also read as: "Something I haven't seen doing something I don't expect it
to? Ridiculous!"

The correlation between students at Waldorf schools and prestigious schools
later is _extremely_ easily explained by a single character: $

That said, something different than our current, standard public-school fare
probably stands a decent chance of doing better. Anything with more attention
to the methodology stands such a chance. But I'd be willing to bet that many
of the successes also simply reflect parents that are more aware of their
children's education.

~~~
adam
Your specific comment about "$" may be false. Waldorf schools in urban areas
are indeed $15k+/year/kid, but there are Waldorf schools in rural areas that
charge far less for tuition. Not having kids myself but knowing parents of
kids who go to Waldorf schools, your second statement seems more accurate:
from what they say the parents are very involved in the schooling - in fact
the Waldorf methodology is insistent on it.

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tikhonj
I think that this approach is basically absurd. I easily learned more during
my lunches in the computer lab, going through HTML, CSS and then JavaScript
tutorials or writing batch files to do silly things than anywhere else during
my time in middle school.

Not only this, but (especially further on, in 7th and 8th grade), I learned
other subjects more effectively thanks to computers. I still remember _The
Crucible_ because I made a website (complete with red text in Chiller,
uncontrollable music and animated drops of blood for the background) for it; I
learned factoring by writing a simple JavaScript game for it.

I think this easily beats spending weeks cutting up fruit and shunning
technology. Had I not been playing around with computers and the internet
since a young age, not only would I probably not have found my true calling--
CS--but I would also probably have had a worse education in all the other
fields as well.

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namank
I agree with the philosophy. Foundations of learning should not be built on
use of Google as a search engine. Foundations should he a mix of the things
necessary for brain and personality development.

Its synonymous to the debate about letting kids use calculators for simple (or
not so simple ) math problems.

~~~
nightski
Isn't it sad that the computing experience is now defined as using Google?
What a waste.

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joshu
Curiously, it's in Los Altos. So are the first schools to adopt the Khan
Academy platform.

~~~
gruseom
Rich freethinkers.

~~~
joshu
Is that good or bad?

~~~
gruseom
Good on both points in my book.

(Was going to say "rich hippies" but thought better of it. I mean freethinker
in the original sense, someone who doesn't follow norms.)

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ethank
I went to a Waldorf type school (called a multi-year back when I was in
elementary school). My classroom was 90 kids, grades K-3 in a room that was
four classrooms with walls knocked down. No desks, self-directed curriculum,
etc. I was in a 4-6 after this, which was more structured but still self
directed.

<http://fsd.k12.ca.us/rollinghills/multiage.html>

This was my program. My sister and I went through it. To this day a lot of us
still keep in touch with our teacher.

It was not strict Waldorf, more inspired by it and still is to this day.

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devs1010
wow these "tech" worker parents are seriously pretty messed up. I'm pretty
sure my early computer use and curiosity led to my current career as a
software developer, I can't imagine not knowing how to use a search engine
until eighth grade, I was messing around looking at HTML code and stuff in
like 5th or 6th grade

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michaelochurch
One thing that saddens me in education is the death of Long Division. I took a
couple math-ed courses in college and I was shocked when I learned that most
it's not being taught in most schools. It's "too hard" and it's "useless",
some say, so it's being taken out of the curriculum.

Bullshit it's useless. Multiplication tables are memorized lookup tables.
That's "rote" but important, but it's not when math starts to become
interesting. Long multiplication and division are the first time people have
to use an algorithm for a problem too difficult to do in any other way. And
yes, it needs to be done by hand and if it takes a few months for the average
student to get it right, fine. It's important. Not the actual skill of
dividing 83914 by 203, but the process of carrying out a mechanical algorithm
by hand.

Should computers be a part of education? Absolutely. Should programming be
taught in school? Yes. Should we abandon the process of running algorithms by
hand, as a mechanism for understanding rule-based computation at an early age?
No.

Interesting fact: early computers (in the 1940s) were not competitive with
human "computers"-- savants whose jobs were to do arithmetical calculations.
They were actually slower. What made mechanical computers such a win was that
they could keep going and remain reliable, whereas human computers would start
making mistakes after 8 hours.

If you've gone through the humiliating process of trying to calculate a 6-by-6
determinant by hand and getting it wrong, you understand this, and you know
_why_ the rigor offered by mechanical computation is so important. If you
haven't, it probably doesn't make sense to you.

