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A Silicon Valley School That Doesn't Use Computers
Hugh Pickens writes "Matt Richtel writes that many employees of Silicon Valley giants like Google, Apple, Yahoo and Hewlett-Packard send their children to the Waldorf School in Los Altos where the school's chief teaching tools are anything but high-tech: pens and paper, knitting needles and, occasionally, mud. Not a computer to be found. No screens at all. Computers are not allowed in the classroom, and the school even frowns on their use at home. 'I fundamentally reject the notion you need technology aids in grammar school,' says Alan Eagle whose daughter, Andie, attends a Waldorf school, an independent school movement that boasts an 86 year history in North America. 'The idea that an app on an iPad can better teach my kids to read or do arithmetic, that's ridiculous.' Advocates for equipping schools with technology say computers can hold students' attention and, in fact, that young people who have been weaned on electronic devices will not tune in without them."
I was just about to make this exact point.
Access to money or resources in general changes the problem. Poorer schools often have terrible teacher to student ratios, constant budget cuts ( everyone hates taxes right? ), and lots of social and environmental ( not talking about the weather here ) problems to deal with. Teachers become a lot more things than just 'educators'. In fact, having a computer assist in the education while the teacher plays counselor/discipline enforcer/confidant/role mole/etc, etc. is a lucky break for these poor overworked saps.
What we need is smarter Education software. Software that knows the material needed for ever level. Software that adapts to the students special needs. Software that alerts the teacher when the student seems to have a problem ( eg. dyslexia, attention span issues ). Software that may help keep inexperienced Educators themselves at a particular teaching pace or to a particular teaching standard.
Just a little background here. My wife, two boys and I recently relocated back to the bay area. My son (and wife and I) interviewed at the Waldorf school, and my son was admitted. We decided not to have him attend because 1) the cost was high (roughly $15K a year for 3 half-days a week for a pre-schooler) and 2) the people making decisions there are little bit... eccentric. They made it very clear that they are anti-computers and anti-video (TV or videos of any sort). That's fine, if a bit unrealistic. Next they let us know that the teachers provided deep-tissue massage to the kids during each day's nap time. And explained how cell phones and electromagnetic radiation are giving people cancer. And talked about how a montessori education (aka actual learning in the classroom versus solely focusing on play as they do for preschoolers at Waldorf) isn't effective at an early age. I'm fine with these folks taking whatever positions they like, but I don't need my son to go to a school that believes technology is evil and learning is inappropriate in a preschool classroom. We're paying roughly the same money for my son to attend a montessori school nearby (5 half-days a week) and are pretty happy with it. To each their own, but honestly the attitudes present there really didn't work for my family.
Access to money or resources in general changes the problem.
Apparently you are not familiar with the definitive research in this area. The Coleman Report (Equality of Educational Opportunity, 1966) contradicts your assertions and found:
"Using data from over 600,000 students and teachers across the country, the researchers found that academic achievement was less related to the quality of a student's school, and more related to the social composition of the school, the student's sense of control of his environment and future, the verbal skills of teachers, and the student's family background."
If you want to fix the slide in educational outcomes in the US, you need to stop spending on all the frills (no more monuments to technology and sports) and signifacntly raise the bar on educational expectations. Then we need to engage the parents and begin to educate them on their role in their child's education. Finally, we need to get rid of half of the administration staff in school districts. The upside to this approach is that we will free up a siginificant amount of money that can be used to hire more teachers and shrink classroom size.
Our problem is not the quality of our teachers, it is the low level of expectations that we have placed upon our students, their peer groups, and their parents.