The Drawbacks of a Technophobic Education
The Times reports from a Waldorf model private school in Silicon Valley, where the elementary school offspring of Google and Apple engineers are prevented from using cell phones, computers, and iPads, and instead encouraged to knit, bake, and write by hand.
I'm generally skeptical of technophilic education reform, since I believe curriculum and quality teaching are far more important than whizz-bang gadgetry. But I don't think technophobic classrooms would work nearly as well for a less priveleged student population. Consider this statement from Alan Eagle, a Waldorf parent and Google executive who brags that his fifth-grade daughter doesn't know how to perform a Google search.
“It’s supereasy. It’s like learning to use toothpaste,” Mr. Eagle said. “At Google and all these places, we make technology as brain-dead easy to use as possible. There’s no reason why kids can’t figure it out