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image:Jim Wilson/New York Times

While most schools are keeping up with technology and equipping their classrooms with computers and similar equipment, the Waldorf School in the Silicon Valley is going against the trend. They prefer to use pens and paper, knitting needles and, occasionally, mud. Not only do they eschew technology, they even scorn their use at home.

This is not a school erected in a remote village with Amish-like attendees. It is attended by children of digerati who work in technology giants like Google, Apple, Yahoo and Hewlett-Packard.  This is the Waldorf School of the Peninsula, one of the 160 Waldorf schools in the country that adopts a teaching philosophy that places emphasis on physical activity and learning through creative and hands-on tasks. It is their believe that spending time on the computer inhibits creativity, limits movement and human interaction. Parents and educators in this  epicentre of the high-tech world believe that computers and schools don't have to mix, and there should be blackboards and chalks, not laptops.

image:Jim Wilson/New York Times

An associate professor of education at Furman University and a former teacher who has written 12 books about public educational methods, supports the system, "Teaching is a human experience. Technology is a distraction when we need literacy, numeracy and critical thinking." The parents agree that real, engaged learning is achieved by having great teachers with interesting lesson plans.

The Waldorf parents are not worried that their children will lag behind in the technology world.  Given how dead-easy gadgets are made be used nowadays, they believe kids will have no problem picking up those skills, at the right time.

Read full story by Matt Richtel on New York Times.

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