Abstract
Abstract Introduction: The number of two-to three-year-old children using mobile phones was 10% in 2013 compared to 40% in 2017 (Konok, Bunford, & Miklósi, 2020). Several theoretical and empirical studies deal with the didactics of using modern technology in the classroom. Most studies highlight the neutral (Zsolnai, 2017) or positive impact of using ICT in the classroom. Only a few address the negative effects of digitally enhanced learning (Dávila, Casabayó, & Rayburn, 2018; Livingstone, 2012; Lorenzo & Trujillo, 2018). State education has continually tried to integrate modern technology with education, but there are also examples of institutional restrictions on its use and even a total ban can also be found. Purpose: This study provides an overview of the pedagogical and epistemological reasons why Waldorf pedagogy and Waldorf Steiner schools take a critical approach to the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) and to “screens” in general, together with mapping out the current state of Waldorf schools in Hungary. Methods: In the present study, we applied source analysis as a traditional research method in the philosophy of education. Conclusions: The findings show that the institutional use of information and communication technologies entirely contradicts the basis, tasks and spirit of Waldorf pedagogy. If we look at the epistemology and anthroposophical anthropology of Waldorf pedagogy, we can see that the autonomy of a Waldorf teacher is not limitless, and so a continuous practical and theoretical responsibility of the Waldorf movement and Waldorf teachers is to establish and uphold coherence between the practices of every Waldorf institution and Waldorf pedagogy.
Highlights
The number of two-to three-year-old children using mobile phones was 10% in 2013 compared to 40% in 2017 (Konok, Bunford, & Miklósi, 2020)
According to the anthroposophical anthropology in Waldorf pedagogy, and to the Steiner’s theory of human developmental stages, a young child’s basic quality is imitation; children around puberty live in their feelings, and adolescents develop the power of own judgement stemming from the urge to be separate
The findings show that the institutional use of information and communication technologies contradicts the basis, tasks and spirit of Waldorf pedagogy entirely
Summary
Waldorf schools in Hungary at present The question should not be: What does a human being need to know and be able to do for the social order that exists?, but rather: What capacities are latent in this human being, and what lies within that can be developed? (Steiner, 1985, p. 72) Globally, Waldorf Kindergartens and Schools are partially state funded. Significant elements of the anthroposophical spiritual science based on Steiner’s epistemological groundings and elements of Waldorf pedagogy based on this science both have roots in earlier times, its phenomenological (in Rudolf Steiner’s terminology symptomological) statements about the human being, nature, science, pedagogy, arts are original, and they are unfolding a human-scientific approach An example of this is how it explains natural phenomena as moral, allegorical entities, as a kind of natural scientific hermeneutics (Steiner, 2013): Well, the way in which people construct machines, for instance, varies greatly according to the nature of the machine in question; at present machines are still imperfect and primitive, but everything tends towards the gradual development of a kind of machine that depends on oscillations, in which oscillation, vibration, For example, illustrating the hierarchies of the beings can be detected before Greek philosophy, e.g. the different registers on the Uruk Vase, and later, in Plato’s analogy of the divided line (VI/509d-511e.) This was followed by the long and complete periods of Western thought reaching to the Middle Ages, such as Dionysius the Areopagite’s Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, Raymundus Lullus’s Theory of Elements (Lullus pictured the staircases in Liber de ascensum as lapis, flora, planta, brutu, homo, celum, angeli, Deus - his ladder of beings), further examples: Bouelles (1512), Bonnet (1745); Hermann (1783); Lamarc (1809); Darwin (1859); Haeckel (1874); Reid (1882); Sparks (1932); Lewis (1992); Blackmore and Troscianko (2003) (as cited in Lovejoy, 2009) followed. Information and communication technology from the perspective of Waldorf pedagogy
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