MEDIA & TECHNOLOGY PHILOSOPHY
Waldorf education has long been grounded in the belief that media exposure is counterproductive to the development of imagination and memory and the ability to entertain oneself, especially in the younger grades and in early childhood. While we know that most families have some media as part of the home experience, we encourage families to significantly limit or discontinue exposure to television, movies, video games, computers, and other entertainment media. At the very minimum, we expect families to maintain a no-media policy during the school week. You can read more about this in our Parent Handbook.
More and more education and human development research bear out the negative effects of large amounts of media on children, particularly in the preschool and grade-school years.
We acknowledge that this can be a difficult transition, especially if the student has had a lot of media interaction prior to Waldorf school attendance. We are supportive of our families making this transition and can offer many solutions and reference materials.
World Health Organization Recommendations:
To grow up healthy, children need to sit less and play more
More Resources: