Science & Technology
Curriculum
for the 21st
Century
Dick “Cedar” Oliver
High Mowing School
Wilton, New Hampshire
July, 2000
This
paper is an attempt to articulate my vision of how the science and technology
curriculum and science facilities at High Mowing School will be developed over
the next few years. Most of the text is taken from two letters I wrote to the
High Mowing College of Teachers and the Long Range Planning Committee early in
the year 2000. Though those letters contained many more specific references to
the history and facilities of High Mowing, in this paper I present only the
more general considerations that might be helpful to teachers at other high
schools when planning their own curricula.
Keep
in mind that, although I’ve developed these thoughts over many years of working
with teenagers, the specific courses I outline here are largely untested. I’m
sure that they will change significantly as I teach them over the coming years,
and some or all may be entirely inappropriate in other settings than High
Mowing School (a 9-12 boarding and day school established in 1942 and situated
among the “high mowing” hilltop fields of a rural New England hilltop
farmstead). My hope, however, is that by sharing my own thoughts in some detail
here, I can also inspire more discussion among colleagues throughout and beyond
the Waldorf movement about how science and technology education can look toward
the new century.
It
is often said that science education lies at the very heart of the Waldorf high
school curriculum. In Waldorf elementary schools, the logical, scientific mode
of thinking is intentionally not brought into full fruition even though much is
done to prepare for it. Not until the adolescent years do we as educators guide
the intellect toward truly objective rationality—the kind of rational thought
that forms the foundation for modern science and technology. While the
elementary school student needs the freedom to remain in a dreamy state
reminiscent of life in centuries past, the high school graduate must also be
free to stand fully awake in the 21st century world.
This
process of human development leaves us with two central questions:
·
How
can we help students develop the kind of crystal-clear, precise, and intricate
thinking which lies behind much of our modern world?
·
How
can we help students strengthen and preserve the fluid, warm, and responsible
thinking that can so easily be lost in our modern world?
The polarity
between these states of mind is a fundamental feature of the human condition in
our times, and it is a fundamental task of education today to harmonize these
discordant states of the human soul.
Science
and technology—our knowledge of the physical world, and our capacity to alter
it—are the fields of human endeavor where the contrast between cold rationality
and compassionate responsibility appears most stark. Can we introduce students
to these fields in such a way that they remain truly free to think both
rationally and responsibly, both clearly and fluidly? Can we enable them to
build an intimate relationship to the objective physical world without
forsaking their personal relationship to subjective spiritual realities?
Only
by facing these challenging questions can we hope to plan science curricula and
facilities to meet the deepest needs of adolescents in the coming decades.
Like
most other Waldorf high schools, High Mowing offers a carefully considered
sequence of science main lesson blocks timed to answer the inner development of
adolescents. Not all of the blocks have been offered due to scheduling and
staffing limitations, but the general sequence is outlined below.
9th Grade 10th Grade 11th Grade 12th Grade*
Physics Thermodynamics Mechanics Electromagnetics Optics
Chemistry Inorganic/Organic Acids/Bases Atomic
Theory Biochemistry
Earth Science Geology Meteorology Astronomy Ecology/Evolution
Life Science Physiology Embryology Botany Zoology
* History through Science has
also usually been offered in the senior year.
Though
each teacher should of course rediscover and “re-create” these subjects anew,
the overall organization of topics provides a wide-ranging, developmentally
appropriate introduction to the essential aspects of science that every student
should be exposed to before graduation. I do not recommend that significant
changes be made to the science main lesson block sequence—other than providing
the facilities and faculty to more consistently deliver all or most of these
blocks while we also increase our enrollment.
Are
the traditional science main lesson blocks enough to help today’s adolescents
develop and balance both precise scientific thought and a compassionate,
responsible connection to nature? On a more practical level, we must also ask
whether these blocks are enough to satisfy current and future college
admissions requirements.
The
main lesson block can be an excellent format for conveying intellectual
content, experiencing the deeper human meaning of that content, and building
“beginner-level” skills. The science block teacher’s task is to identify the
most essential phenomena, and offer students a direct living experience of
those phenomena so that they can discover the corresponding concepts through
their own individual and group effort. However, even when teachers succeed in
creating extraordinary educational experiences during the main lessons, it is
clear that many students need the opportunity to go deeper. I would identify
several specific capacities that are especially difficult to develop within the
format of a three or four week, 90- or 120-minute class:
The
Naturalist Program at High Mowing has set a precedent of developing precisely these
sorts of capacities in regard to the life sciences and Earth sciences. Keith
Badger has created an educational context where, instead of an instructor
providing the experimental apparatus and experiment goals, students have the
opportunity to create their own tools and uncover their own personal goals. By
conducting classes outdoors in the forest, the Naturalist Program also provides
students with an opportunity to undertake long-term projects, develop a deeper
level of intimacy with Nature, and experience rhythms, environments, and rites
of passage that would be difficult or impossible to access within the
traditional classroom main lesson format. The study of science is tightly
integrated with social studies and creative artistic work as well.
I
feel fortunate to be able to point to the Naturalist Program as an example of
the type of “deepening” that students need to complement their main lesson
blocks. Though the recommendations I will make later in this letter concerning
laboratory-based physical sciences may appear outwardly dissimilar to Keith’s
program, my goal is to provide the same type of deepening of student’s
experience in laboratory science that he offers in the environmental and
ecological sciences.
If
the two most fundamental human capacities we hope to foster with our science
curriculum are crystal-clear, intricate thinking and fluid,
compassionate thinking, then it would be somewhat natural to expect that
studying physics and chemistry might foster clarity and precision, while the
life sciences and Earth sciences would tend to inspire warmth and sensitivity.
There is truth to this notion, and yet it is physical science—from whence we
get all things nuclear and chemical—which actually requires the most
compassionate responsibility from us. Likewise, it is the complexity of the
living world that most demands intricate and accurate thought.
--------------->
Sensitivity Precision
<---------------
Laboratory Science
When
we learn to be sensitive to the living world, we are led by it toward
compassion. Only through our own inner efforts can we then move through
compassion, toward clarity and thus gain a balanced and true knowledge of
Nature. Conversely, working with precision in the mineral world clarifies our
thinking, and through our own inner efforts that we can then move through
clarity, toward compassion and develop a balanced picture of our
relationship to physical reality. Another way to express this would be to say
that the living world can give us the capacity to think compassionately, while
the mineral world can give us the capacity to think clearly. These are
the means by which we must work as educators if we are to succeed in a genuine
study of these realms. The ultimate ends that we strive for, however, are
exactly reversed: when sensitivity to nature allows compassion to blossom, only
then do students truly have the potential to develop clear thinking in a
responsible way. Paradoxically, when precise control of the mineral world
blossoms into clarity of though, only then does the student truly have the
potential to develop steadfast and trustworthy compassion.
While
all this may sound a bit abstract, I present it as a picture of how the
Naturalist Program and physical science program might approach the same two
fundamental tasks from opposite directions. If students can be immersed in the
natural world in such a way that genuine love of all life and a deep sense of
responsibility are allowed to flow into their souls, then through hard work
they may begin to clearly see and think about the world in an entirely new,
more accurate way. Only through this type of transformative journey—of which
the Naturalist Program is an excellent example—can a young person be led to
true thoughts about the living world and the role of humanity within it.
Again,
the converse applies to physical science. If students can be immersed in the
mechanical, mineral world in such a way that crystal clarity and meticulous
precision are allowed to flow into their souls, then through hard work they may
begin to develop a feeling for the workings of the cosmos and appreciate the
majesty and wonder of physical reality in an entirely new way. Only through
this type of journey—of which I hope our laboratory science program will be an
example—can a young person be led to a genuine love for the physical universe
and compassionate responsibility concerning the role of human beings in it.
How,
then, might a teacher lead a student on such a journey? What activities could a
teenager engage in that might let clarity and precision “flow into their souls”
from the very nature of the physical world itself? History suggests an answer
to this question: As human beings developed the type of thinking we call now
call “clear” or “logical” (another word, perhaps more accurate, would be
“mechanistic”), they began to build the type of artifacts we now call
“machines.” As this new mode of consciousness grew stronger, they began to use
those machines to seek mechanical “laws” underlying physical reality.
More
specifically, they built machines out of certain materials—in fact, materials
not normally found in nature. These materials are of course the metals, particularly
copper and iron, refined from natural ores (often crystals) and sometimes
alloyed with tin, zinc, lead, carbon, and other crystalline substances. It was
through the discovery, liberation, and utilization of these materials that
humankind was able to leave the “stone age” and refine the ability to think in
more modern ways about the universe and our role in it.
Clear,
rational thought is, from a certain point of view, actually “metallic”
thinking—that is, making connections and divisions in the way that we first
expressed and developed by making and using metal tools. From this perspective,
then, an educational goal would be to bring each class of students into the
“bronze age” and “iron age” up through the modern age of steel buildings and copper-based
communications technology.
Glasswork
also plays a key role, both historically and pedagogically. Just as the
disordered inner structure of a glass is physically the opposite of a highly
ordered metal surface, work with silica glass allows the construction of
scientific instruments to contain, mix, and synthesize. These provide a balance
to the tendency of metal instruments to pinpoint, divide, and analyze. Few
areas of science can be investigated without developing both of these types of
technology. By designing and building instruments out of these two types of
crystalline material, we develop complementary aspects of “crystal-clear”
thought.
Interestingly
enough, it is precisely the construction of machines—the “scientific
apparatus”—that is left out of most physical science courses, no less in
Waldorf schools than in other schools. I would suggest that if we are to take
students beyond simply understanding the thoughts of others to the point where
they are asking their own questions about physical reality, then they should be
designing and constructing their own scientific tools and apparatus. To allow
complete and accurate thinking to develop, this should ideally include the
experience of finding and refining the materials as well.
Three
industries lie hidden behind every science laboratory: the mine, the refinery
and the machine shop. Only when students are able to directly participate in
these industries do they have the freedom to produce their own complete
thoughts that lead from the natural, living world to the constructed world of
scientific experiments and theories. The most important of these industries
from a pedagogical perspective is the machine shop; it is through working with
iron, copper, and silicon to embody one’s own thoughts about the world that
precision and clarity can “flow naturally into the soul” from the very nature
of the material and activity.
By
constructing and employing apparatus of one’s own design within a social
context of earnest philosophical investigation, students can begin to make
finer distinctions in their thoughts about physical reality. Testing the
accuracy of their thinking with ever-greater precision, they can be led toward
a deep and genuine experience of the “clockwork” of the universe and become gradually
more conscious their own hidden assumptions about the reality they inhabit.
This activity, coupled with study of the work of others (both peers and the
great scientists of history), leads to deeper and deeper mysteries within
copper (electricity), iron (magnetism), and silicon (semiconductors).
Ultimately, it also leads to modern physics, where the “mechanisms” seem so
utterly unlike a machine that the fundamental nature of existence and knowledge
come into question.
When
students then finally study machines made with new materials such as
radioactive isotopes or superconductors, their perspective may be quite
different than before they themselves become machine-builders and “natural
philosophers.” That difference—a difference of the heart, when somehow the
intimacy of intensive work and thought becomes a sense of awesome
responsibility—is one symptom of the inner effects of this journey.
To
be a bit more concrete, I offer a year-long track course called (unimaginatively)
“Physical Science Lab” where students work individually and as a group to
construct and carry out physics and chemistry experiments of their own design.
Students pose and pursue their own questions that arise out of individual and
group philosophical work, and also study how other scientists have approached
similar questions in the past. They keep individual lab journals documenting
their own assumptions and theories about the nature of reality, instrument
designs, experimental results, and philosophical implications. Considerable
time is spent writing technical and research reports, as well as less formal
essays and short science fiction stories. Technical drawing and drafting of
schematics can also be an integral step in the design and construction of instruments.
Another
important aspect of this course is giving students an experience of the
cultural context of scientific research, including discussion of how that
culture affects the subject matter and results of the scientific endeavor. The
format of class meetings, group decision-making, and sharing of results would
be carried out in a way that mirrors historical and contemporary “scientific
culture.” Like the Naturalist Program, this course clearly includes a great
deal that could easily be classified as “English,” “Art,” or “Social Studies,”
rather than “Science.”
When
possible, students would actually refine their own materials, but for practical
and economic reasons much of the metal, glass, and other raw material will
always need to be purchased in refined form. In this regard, a key piece of the
program is the planned expansion of the Naturalist Program to include the
experience of smelting and/or forging metals. Another crucial experience upon
which the lab science program rests is the craft of pottery, out of which all
more modern technologies and sciences ultimately arose. In a very real sense,
students’ work in the pottery studio provides the foundation stone upon which a
study of science can be built.
The
science block classes, the Naturalist Program, and the Physical Science Lab
together form a balanced and cohesive set of science courses. However, I
believe that a third perspective on science is necessary to create a truly
comprehensive college-preparatory science curriculum.
I
have offered the view that the Naturalist Program and the Physical Science Lab
can help students learn to be both dispassionately objective and
compassionately subjective—in other words, to unite and harmonize the two sides
of human thinking. Another way to look at this is to see the Naturalist Program
as an effort to help modern teenagers build a connection to the world as it was
experienced in previous ages. The Physical Science Lab, on the other hand,
seeks to awaken truly modern consciousness. Ironically, the method of
connecting to the past is to develop a sensitive awareness of nature in the
present moment, and the method of awakening modern consciousness is to study
and experience the history of science and society.
In
a sense, these two journeys both lead to a common destination: tomorrow’s
world, where scientific knowledge gives human beings the power and
responsibility to manipulate and preserve (or destroy) all life on Earth. In
order to take that step into “future thinking,” students need the opportunity
to apply both sensitivity and precision to the study and stewardship of living
beings.
Bioengineering
and agriculture—the most modern and most ancient arts—are the arenas where both
compassion and clarity come to fullest fruition. Their practice is likely to be
a profoundly important issue throughout the 21st century and beyond,
directly affecting the lives of everyone on the planet. The Biology and Organic
Chemistry blocks provide a minimum level of literacy in biochemistry to all
students, and some Waldorf schools choose to teach Organic Chemistry to
freshmen and go deeper into Biochemistry topics in the senior year. Even if our
block class offerings were strengthened in this subject area, any student
interested in medicine, politics, technology or science should be able to go
deeper into these central topics of our times.
A
junior/senior-level elective would give students the opportunity to explore the
physical basis of life and the enlivening of physical matter in a hands-on
laboratory/greenhouse setting. Ideally, breeding and stewardship of plants and
animals would also be integrated into the course. If at least a year of the
Naturalist Program and/or Physical Science Lab were a prerequisite, the Life
Science Lab could also serve as a final step in the path toward unification of
scientific thinking and compassionate responsibility. I hesitate to make
detailed recommendations for the format or content of this program, since I do
not consider myself qualified to teach it. Nonetheless, our plans for High
Mowing’s future include suitable facilities and faculty to offer a strong Life
Science Lab track as well as rigorous Organic Chemistry and/or
Biochemistry/Genetics blocks.
It
is not difficult to envision the possibility of a gardening and/or farming
program that could go far beyond one lab-science course. Integrating the daily
care of living beings more fully into the educational experience could have a
profound positive impact on the entire curriculum, not only in science classes
but throughout the campus, from dining hall to dormitories. We are currently
developing a proposal to move in this direction at High Mowing, though an
academic Life Science Lab course would also still be needed to fully prepare
students for college.
One
of the most active and controversial areas of curriculum development today in
Waldorf schools—as well as most others—is the expanding role of communications
technology. By “communications technology,” I mean devices which record,
process, transmit, and reproduce human communication, including the written
word, mathematical symbols, sounds, and/or visual images. In the current
century, there were various separate machines of this type: typewriters,
telephones, television, stereos, cameras, calculators, and so on. Already at
the dawn of the coming century, it is difficult to draw clear distinctions
between such machines as they all mix and merge with the general-purpose
communications devices known (for historical reasons) as “computers.”
Furthermore, an increasing number of these devices are connected to one
another, forming communications networks at every scale from local “intranets”
to the global “Internet.”
So
far, this paper has made little mention of communications technologies and no
suggestion that they play a major role in the science and technology
curriculum. Clearly, there is a need to focus specifically on the role of these
technologies, with an eye toward how to create a campus and curriculum that incorporates
them in a way that genuinely supports and enhances the education of teenagers.
I’ll start with two fundamental questions:
A
frequently-cited justification for “educational technology” is the need to feel
at home in a world dominated by information machines. This is often interpreted
to mean that all students should ideally be practiced and comfortable using
today’s hardware and software by the time they graduate. While this may indeed
be a worthy goal, it is my hope that in Waldorf schools we can look much deeper
into the inner nature of the human being. Specifically, I would suggest we ask
ourselves what effects, both positive and negative, that the presence of
communication technology may have on:
Communications
technology has the potential to strongly influence all of these, and this
potential—both constructive and destructive—will only grow stronger in the
coming decade and beyond. The polarities we must grapple with are immense; some
will sincerely question whether there is anything
healthy for the developing teenager to be found in modern technology, while
other feel that any and all progress in this area is of the greatest possible
benefit to the students.
Looking more
closely at some of these polarities, our challenges may include educating the
students to:
·
Maintain
distant communication with family and friends without eroding the role of
direct face-to-face communication on campus.
·
Develop the
ability to think in discrete, logical steps when appropriate while also
fostering more fluid, creative forms of thought.
·
Learn to
create “virtual realities” to be experienced by others—both written words and
audiovisual recordings—while remaining fully aware of the deep responsibility
for another’s soul that this entails.
·
Discover
the freedom of expression that digital technologies can provide without
becoming addicted and unable to express one’s self without them.
·
Fully
understanding the scientific/technological worldview out of which so much of
our society and surroundings have been created, while remaining free to
question its most fundamental tenets.
Each young
person meeting these technologies is confronted with the potential to think and
act with almost unimaginable clarity, precision, complexity, and creative
power. They are also confronted with an equally unimaginable potential for
addictive, dehumanized, coldly dispassionate destruction. As planners and
educators, we must clearly tread with extraordinary caution as we prepare a
place for this meeting.
Some Guiding Principles
Waldorf
schools do not teach courses in “paintbrushes,” “paper and pencil,” or
“microscope.” Instead, we teach courses in the arts, humanities, and sciences.
The techniques for using tools are introduced as necessary and appropriate, but
always in the context of higher human purposes that the tools help us strive
toward. Like a library, a campus communications network is not a separate
subject area but rather a “master tool” that every teacher and student may turn
to.
Yet all too often,
the tool itself can end up being the master. Can young people today be
introduced to technology in such a way that they master it, rather than it
mastering them? My own approach when carrying this question into the classroom
is to follow several principles that extend throughout Waldorf education:
·
Avoid using
a technology in the classroom until students truly understand the principles
behind its operation and construction.
·
Develop an
understanding of technology by designing and building it, and by learning about
the thoughts of the individuals who invented it.
·
Protect
students from technologies that cannot be mastered without inner capacities
they haven’t yet developed.
·
Provide
only educational experiences which answer a “calling” within the student at
their current stage of development.
Finding
the appropriate role for communications technology in the Waldorf curriculum is
therefore not a simple matter of deciding when to offer a “computers” block or
track class. Likewise, planning the appropriate physical places for technology
on campus is not a simple matter of deciding where to put a “computer room.”
Indeed,
the question of where computers will be located on campus is easy to answer:
they will be everywhere excepting where rules or social conventions prohibit
them, everywhere that students and teachers carry notebooks today. In terms of
planning, the most important question may be: Where won’t we allow communications technology? Will paper books be
allowed in places where electronic books are not? Can students type (or
automatically transcribe) their notes in class instead of using a pen? Can
faculty bring electronic notebooks to meetings? Can students and teachers wear
pagers, phones, or other wireless devices in class? The rules and conventions set
by the faculty on these issues today may have a profound effect on the
atmosphere and social environment in coming years.
As adults, our
biggest planning challenge may be to avoid thinking in terms of an out-dated 20th
century idea of “computers” being large, expensive stationary objects arranged
in neat rows and housed in a room of their own. A more realistic analogy would
be to think of a “new kind of paper”—that is, paper which can record and convey
information in a much more flexible, animated, multi-sensory fashion than
traditional paper.
Curriculum Recommendations
Given this
context, the question of how teachers will use such “paper” becomes much more
challenging. Should we “just say no” to the great “electronic drug,” or should
we encourage technology use and “bring Waldorf education into the 21st
century?” We need to navigate carefully between these extremes, embracing
communications technology only where it is truly essential in awakening human
capacities for clear thought, deep compassion, and strength of will. This will
involve both “saying no” to many popular uses of technology and planning for a
significant investment in technology for our own educational purposes.
I offer the
following recommendations as a starting point for discussion.
1. Communications Technology Blocks
I offer
two Communications Technology blocks to all students. Though I developed these
myself, they are quite similar to what several other Waldorf high schools
currently offer.
The
first is a 10th grade block introducing the fundamental principles
of message encoding, transmission, and storage. In this block, students build
both mechanical and electronic communications devices, progressing from sticks
and strings to breadboards and transistor-transistor logic (TTL) chips. Since
the emphasis is on principles of information theory that do not depend on the
particular medium used to convey messages, the electricity and mechanics blocks
are not prerequisites. In fact, this block could be considered a prerequisite
to other science blocks, since its subject is the human context out of which
scientific knowledge arises. It also provides an excellent follow-up or
precedent to Thermodynamics (usually taught as a freshman physics block) since
it includes an introduction to “entropy” as a fundamental idea that extends
beyond its thermodynamic applications.
The
second is a senior block on mathematical logic. After some initial work on
rhetoric and reasoning, this covers the history of the foundations of
mathematics from the 1790s through the present day, with an emphasis on the
biographies and work of Cantor, Russell, Gödel, Turing, von Neumann, Cohen,
Shannon, and others as they explored the question of what it means to reason.
Along the way, these same individuals invented the computer and the field of
study called information theory. This block provides students with the “real
story” behind the subject they studied in the earlier communications technology
block. It also gives them a big picture unifying the many fields of mathematics
they have studied throughout high school. These historical figures also played
central roles in the major world wars, the invention of the atom bomb and
modern physics, and the major social and economic upheavals of the 20th
century. This block therefore complements the World History block with an
intimate view of modern history and its relationship to mathematics and
science.
Neither
of these blocks has special room requirements, aside from the availability of
electrical power for part of the 10th grade block. It is not be necessary for either of these
blocks to have a “computer classroom” with network displays and keyboards at
every desk.
2. Humanities Curriculum
When
introduced at a developmentally appropriate point, word processing and
computer-assisted page layout can free students to compose and edit their
thoughts in a more fluid, creative, and efficient manner. I have urged the
humanities faculty as a group to consciously consider when and how typing
should be encouraged and/or taught as an integrated part of the English
curriculum, and when typed papers should be suggested or required in other
classes. I do strongly suggest that teachers discourage typed papers and
computer use until after the introductory Communications Technology block.
Since typing
is an essential skill that takes varying amounts of time for students to
master, I recommend that English teachers assign the use of computer typing
tutorial software as part of the students’ homework, especially during the
sophomore year and that graded tests of typing skills be given in English class
before any classes require typed papers. For students who don’t have their own
computers, the typing software can be available on the network.
Aside
from a possible short introduction to basic word processing, I would not
recommend that computer-assisted page layout or illustration be taught in the
humanities curriculum. (See the following Arts Curriculum section for my
recommendations on teaching these skills.) I also suggest that hand-drawn
artwork, diagrams, and graphs be accepted even when the text of a paper must be
typed.
A
primary role of the campus communications network is to provide a “cyberspace”
storage facility for typed papers and any other computer-assisted assignments.
Access to the network should therefore be conveniently available from the
library, student center, dormitories, and any classrooms where they would be
expected to spend time on their assignments. Students should also be able to
exchange files with the network from their own computers, preferably through
wireless technology and/or remote access from home.
Another
major role of the network is to provide access to research materials, both
locally on our servers and globally through the Internet. I recommend that
local information be selected and managed by the librarian in coordination with
the faculty, just as she manages our printed resources. Providing a portal to
Internet resources should also be a service of the library. The faculty as a
group should discuss and determine what level of content filtering is
appropriate to reduce student exposure to inappropriate material.
Note
that I am not recommending our campus network follow the popular trend toward
“multimedia.” Text and still images should continue to be the primary forms of
information that students are encouraged to use in their academic studies into
the foreseeable future. Therefore, the campus-wide network need not include
costly high-speed wiring or equipment. A single server and low-cost
workstations spread throughout the campus should be quite sufficient for
several years to come. These can be connected with inexpensive 10-baseT
cabling, which has enough potential to handle fast Internet access and local
communications for many simultaneous users.
3. Arts Curriculum
Has
communications technology enabled human beings to develop and exercise
fundamental human capacities that would otherwise lie dormant? Should we be
educating these capacities in our students? If so, then we should look to the
arts as the central pillar of any such education. Indeed, 20th
century communications technology lies at the very center of a new art form,
the “time-based arts” of audio and video production. In the 21st
century, these will be intimately entwined with even newer forms of interactive
art.
What
human capacities are awakened by the activity of creating an audiovisual
production? On a superficial level, actively making a CD or movie can be a very
enlightening experience for someone used to simply “consuming” information
products from Hollywood. On a much deeper level, media production is
essentially creating a world for someone
else to live in for a certain amount of time. Unlike live plays, recorded
productions include the step of editing a sequence of created experiences—in essence,
looking at time itself from outside of our ordinary subjective viewpoint. As
every sound engineer or film editor knows, one must learn to consciously
recognize and control how the nuances of timing—even small fractions of a
second—deeply affect the meaning of every human experience.
Throughout
a child’s Waldorf education, we draw each developing potential outward through
the arts, most especially through dramatic production. If we wish to truly
integrate communications technology into our curriculum, I would suggest that
the most powerful and effective way to do so is through the arts, and
especially through dramatic production. At High Mowing, we are transforming our
“computer room” into a Digital Arts Studio where students are introduced to
modern graphics design, typography, digital photography, sound recording and
production, cinematography, 3D computer modeling, and interactive arts.
Each of
these has the potential, if taught in a developmentally appropriate way, to
provide a “crown jewel” to the students’ study of traditional visual and
performance arts. In each case, the role of technology is to empower the artist
to “step outside” the art form and become an “editor” of the artwork or
performance in the same way that the creative writer must learn not only to
write well, but also to rewrite after reading each passage from the reader’s
perspective.
In
contrast to the campus-wide network, which I recommend we keep somewhat “slow
and backward” to encourage text communication, a Digital Arts Studio requires
more advanced technology. In fact, the most important time-based arts of
digital cinematography and interactive three-dimensional design are only barely
possible now with reasonably priced equipment. These aspects of the curriculum
will probably not be fully developed until the middle of the decade, when the
necessary technology will be affordable and functional enough to enable
students to focus on the human endeavor instead of the limitations of immature
technology. Use of interactive art forms is also be limited until the
technology for them matures, though some programming and architectural design
can be incorporated with today’s technologies.
The
presence of a campus-wide network and a Digital Arts Studio provides an
opportunity for students to present their own writing and graphical creations
to one another and to the world. To encourage such sharing, it would be
possible to set up the network so that all workstations display an “online
student newspaper” as the default welcome screen whenever they are not being
used for other purposes. The yearbook is another obvious extracurricular use of
the Digital Arts Studio.
5. Mathematics and Science Curriculum
I
suggest that computer and calculator use in mathematics and science classes be
generally avoided, with exceptions as individual teachers see fit (for example,
in my advanced math and physics classes I use computers to introduce fractal
geometry and chaos theory). My senior mathematical logic block covers the
historical and logical connections between computers and math, and other senior
electives may incorporate such topics as programming or data analysis if
particular students have a special interest in them. As in the humanities, the
network will be used for research, typing homework, and access to any software
that teachers ask students to use.
Note
that I’m suggesting the primary use of “computers” (that is, communications
technology) on our campus be in the arts and humanities, not in math and science. Also note that I am recommending against offering any “computer” courses
other than the two required blocks, Digital Arts, and occasional senior
electives tailored to the needs of specific students.
Physical
Science and Digital Art meet in the realm of technology, and in a fundamental
sense both involve creating worlds that are built upon but set apart from
Nature. There is also a deep connection between the Digital Arts and Life
Science Lab. The Communications and Logic main lessons are designed to also
provide a foundation for understanding modern conceptions of genetic
information and the complexity of living ecological systems. (My senior math
course in Dynamics also introduces closely related concepts in both the
physical and life sciences.)
In
essence, both communications theory and the contemporary Life Sciences lift our
thinking out of the “physical laws” of matter into higher-level principles
governing the formative forces that organize matter. They both challenge us to
understand how the outer power to control transmission of information also
demands inner capacities of self-knowledge and responsibility. This elevation
of thinking is vital to a genuine understanding of 21st-century
science and society, and also an important element of the transition from
adolescence to adulthood.
The
following diagram depicts one possible view of the relationship between the
science electives at High Mowing, along with the arts & crafts programs
that give students skills and experiences to support development of scientific
thinking. (The point here is not to suggest that certain courses are
necessarily prerequisites for others—the temporal order of students’
experiences is less important than providing the full cycle of arts and
sciences during the high school years.)
Sensitivity --> Compassion Precision --> Clarity Sensitivity & Precision --> Communication
Compassion & Clarity --> Responsibility
Given
that we improve our facilities and staffing to make the main lesson blocks more
consistently robust and the proposed electives possible, High Mowing students
will be able to meet and exceed the admissions requirements for even the most
competitive technical colleges. Perhaps more importantly, students will have
the opportunity to fully awaken the capacity to think with intense clarity,
intricate precision, and loving responsibility through deeply personal
exploration of the natural world.
The
Bigger Picture: Waldorf Education in the 21st Century
The
approach to science and technology I’ve proposed is somewhat different than the
science curriculum traditionally found in Waldorf high schools. Indeed, one can
interpret the writings of Rudolf Steiner and other master teachers as advocating
against students designing their own apparatus and conducting their own
experiments. Instead it is generally recommended that Waldorf science teachers
focus on carefully prepared demonstrations of phenomena, with as little
mechanical instrumentation as possible standing between students and a direct
experience of Nature. Students are thereby guided toward a discovery of the
appropriate concept for a perceptual experience through their own inner effort.
This “phenomenological” approach to science is deeply founded in the nature of
the human being, and at its best it can be dramatically successful in giving
students a genuine, holistic, and unbiased conception of natural phenomena.
Though
Waldorf teachers’ opinions vary on how strictly phenomenological the high
school science lessons should be, I believe that phenomenology-based
demonstrations and classroom activities may be the best possible way to
introduce students to the fundamental physical characteristics of Nature during
their main lesson blocks. However, every Waldorf science teacher I’ve spoken
with has encountered a fundamental limitation to the traditional approach to
phenomenological science teaching; it provides no obvious way to enter the
realm of 20th century science, which is almost entirely based on
phenomena and concepts that simply cannot be observed at all without complex
technology.
Indeed,
in terms of the actual human experience of modern scientists, the only
“phenomenon” under observation is the technology itself. One way to look
at this situation is that the thoughts of the scientists, as embodied in
their instruments, have become the primary subject matter of science. Both
theoretical and laboratory science in our time have much less to do with an
experience of nature’s reality than with an experience of a created reality.
This is true not only of modern subjects such as quantum mechanics, information
science and complexity theory, but of any scientific endeavor whose results
rest on laboratory apparatus as the medium of observation.
When
we provide students with pre-built instruments, we are in effect hiding the
greater part of the actual phenomena from them. They cannot therefore connect
accurate concepts to their perceptions. In order to gain a genuine
understanding of instrument-based scientific investigation, the instrument
itself must become the object of study.
It
would be a grave mistake, however, to assume that the “phenomenon” of a
scientific instrument or experiment could be studied in the same way as a
naturally occurring phenomenon. Unlike Nature, whose inner secrets are
available to us through careful observation of her outer forms, human thoughts
can be understood only by thinking them ourselves—from the “inside out,” as it
were. This is true even of human thoughts that have been “crystallized” into a
physical machine or piece of equipment. While we can arrive at a true
understanding of natural phenomena only through observation and reflection on
that observation, the route to understanding the experiment itself can
only be found through the act of designing and conducting it. This type of
understanding is greatly aided by a study of the biographies of great
scientists, and by philosophical inquiry into one’s own beliefs and thought
processes.
As
science moves further into elaborate technologies and theories, direct
experience of Nature becomes no less important for every high school student.
Yet, it does become increasingly vital that students also experience and
understand the human process out of which technologies and experimental science
arise. The great challenge facing science teachers today is to bring a study of
human thought into the curriculum more and more, without crowding out
the still-essential study of directly accessible natural phenomena.
Schools
everywhere are succumbing to the temptation to replace “out-dated” industrial
arts facilities and shop classes with abstract, passive study of science and
technology. High Mowing is attempting to serve as an example to the Waldorf
movement and to the world by doing precisely the opposite—that is, by centering
its science and technology programs more than ever around practical, creative
activities that place human hands and natural materials in service to our
highest faculties of thought.