Media Use, Soul Indigestion, and Human Will

Dear Members of The Waldorf School of Santa Barbara Community,

In this sped-up world bombarded by the digital, we believe a spare approach to high technology in the classroom benefits the child. Vicki Larson, in her essay “Waldorf Education and the Use of Technology," explains the rationale for such prudence: “Since a primary goal of Waldorf education is to ground students in their bodies, in three-dimensional unmediated space and in human interaction, the schools aim to offer students unmediated experiences." And electronic technology, Larson asserts, can undermine that primary goal.

And in this sped-up world bombarded by the digital, we believe a spare approach to high technology at home benefits the child, too. Just as we can take in harmful food (or too much food) into our bodies, we can take in harmful food (or too much food) into our souls. We all intuit this. We all intuit this, though we may not act on it. Yes, how hard it can be to resist over-using these screens! How hard it can be to resist plopping the kids in front of a show or letting them pass time on social media! But we must try. For the sake of ourselves and our children, for the sake of this world with all its beauty and anguish, we must try to summon will and discipline in regards to these dynamos. Waldorf teacher Christopher Belski-Sblendorio writes, "The hectic quality of our lives, the undertone of anxiety which permeates our day, our night-time restlessness -- are these symptoms of 'soul indigestion' caused by too many...movies, commercials, and news reports?"

And how eerie and unsettling it can be to recognize that non-screen life -- i.e., the miracle that is this actual world -- can now seem of secondary, lesser importance. What will happen to the miracle that is this actual world if we all forget to see it and be with it? Isn't it a truism that we can't properly care for what we don't intimately know? How do we care for the creek nearby, the suffering child, the homeless woman on our block if we don't -- because we are screen-captured -- know they are there?

Perhaps one of the capital virtues of our time -- a virtue we try to nurture here at WSSB -- is effortfully privileging firsthand, unmediated life, primary life; not the cyber network but a live, in-person, face-to-face one. David Steindl-Rast memorably writes: "It has to be replaced by network. And everybody knows that...that live network: a network of friends; a network of people who serve. These networks, they are the future. Raimundo Panikkar said the future will not be a new, big tower of power. Our hope in the future is the hope into well-trodden paths from house to house, these well-trodden paths from house to house. That is the image that holds promise for our future."

And finally, we include relevant and important guidelines from our WSSB Parent Handbook (page 22) on television and screen time. Please read the following words with care. Thank you!

"In order that home and family life can work most consistently to help nurture the child’s imaginative and creative capacities, we strongly recommend no TV viewing and/or screen time for children in kindergarten through 3rd grade and only very limited and carefully monitored—if any—viewing for children in other grades (this includes video games, Nintendo, computers, phones, and movies). We feel that the effect of the medium itself is not harmonious with our approach. Waldorf teachers work to bring images to life as part of the educational experience. If children are absorbed with media images, then the instructional images have less effect. Also we feel that it is very important that children have time to be actively involved in creative or outdoor play, home projects, reading, and so on. Engaging in electronic entertainment reduces time spent with more creative activities."

With thanks,

The WSSB Admin Team

PS The poem of the day is by William Blake:

Hear the voice of the Bard!Who Present, Past, & Future sees
Whose ears have heard,
The Holy Word,
That walk'd among the ancient trees.

Calling the lapsed Soul
And weeping in the evening dew:
That might controll,
The starry pole;
And fallen fallen light renew!

O Earth O Earth return!
Arise from out the dewy grass;
Night is worn,
And the morn
Rises from the slumberous mass.

Turn away no more:
Why wilt thou turn away
The starry floor
The watry shore
Is giv'n thee till the break of day.