Waldorf News
The Dangers of Distracted Parenting: When it comes to children’s development, parents should worry less about kids’ screen time—and more about their own.
November 26, 2018
Smartphones have by now been implicated in so many crummy outcomes—car fatalities, sleep disturbances, empathy loss, relationship problems, failure to notice a clown on a unicycle—that it almost seems easier to list the things they don’t mess up than the things they do. Our society may be reaching peak criticism of digital devices. Even so, emerging research suggests that a key problem remains underappreciated. It involves kids’ development, but it’s probably not what you think. More than screen-obsessed young children, we should be concerned about tuned-out parents. Yes, parents now have more face time with their children than did almost any parents in history. Despite a dramatic increase in the percentage of women in the workforce, mothers today astoundingly spend more time caring for their children than mothers did in the 1960s. But the engagement between parent and child is increasingly low-quality, even ersatz. Parents are constantly present in their children’s lives physically, but they are less emotionally attuned. To be clear, I’m not unsympathetic to parents in this predicament. My own adult children like to joke that they wouldn’t have survived infancy if I’d had a smartphone in my clutches 25 years ago. More »
Why an 8th Grade Culminating Trip in Fall Makes Sense
November 6, 2018
The 8th grade class culminating trip is a time for celebration, recognition and remembrance of their shared voyage of discovery and growth and is a special part of the Waldorf experience. For most classes, this trip happens in the spring of their final year together, before they go their separate ways. Some Waldorf educators have taken a slightly different approach to the culminating trip, seeing it not only as a joyous occasion, but also as a chance to bond the class together through a meaningful shared experience, which then can be nurtured to grow over the course of their final year together. More »
Surgery Students "Losing Dexterity to Stitch Patients"
November 1, 2018
A professor of surgery says students have spent so much time in front of screens and so little time using their hands that they have lost the dexterity for stitching or sewing up patients. Roger Kneebone, professor of surgical education at Imperial College, London, says young people have so little experience of craft skills that they struggle with anything practical. "It is important and an increasingly urgent issue," says Prof Kneebone, who warns medical students might have high academic grades but cannot cut or sew. "It is a concern of mine and my scientific colleagues that whereas in the past you could make the assumption that students would leave school able to do certain practical things - cutting things out, making things - that is no longer the case," says Prof Kneebone. More »
Why Waldorf Students Knit
October 15, 2018
Knitting has been gathering a lot of attention lately by crafters and scientists alike. It turns out knitting and handwork provides a host of brain and wellbeing benefits to people of all ages. For students, in particular, knitting provides an essential learning medium. A child who is knitting a hat or a toy kitten sees their will transformed into art. They see their focused, detailed work turn into something beautiful and purpose filled. They experience how the conceptual becomes concrete. This is why Waldorf education founder, Rudolf Steiner, lectured on the importance of handwork for students just under 100 years ago. More »
All together now: singing is good for your body and soul: As scientists show that choir practice is healthier than yoga, Sarah Rainey – who does both – praises the power of song
October 7, 2018
After years of singing in the shower and warbling my way through karaoke duets, 18 months ago I finally joined a choir. Every Thursday evening, I head to a church hall in Marylebone, central London, where, along with 30 others – mostly women, the occasional bloke – I spend 90 minutes belting out Motown, gospel and pop classics, from Abba to Bon Jovi. I’m more of a keen amateur than a wannabe soloist, but even the odd off-key note or wrong lyric can’t detract from how good singing makes me feel. I leave every session uplifted, buoyed by a flurry of endorphins flooding through my body. So it comes as no surprise that scientists have shown that not only does singing in a choir make you feel good, it’s got health benefits, too. Researchers at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, found that choristers’ heartbeats synchronise when they sing together, bringing about a calming effect that is as beneficial to our health as yoga. More »
Recent Jobs
View more jobs »
Newsletter Archive
Join the Mailing List!
Stay Connected…
Each week receive the Waldorf News Weekly Update, full of news, events, and more. Keep abreast of what's happening with Waldorf education.
Add a Job Listing
RSS Feeds