A Balanced Approach to Tech
At Boulder Valley Waldorf School, our approach to tech education mirrors our school’s emphasis on holistic development and human skills.
Here in BVWS, we believe that an effective education is holistic and balanced. From preschool to 8th grade, our interdisciplinary academic programs encourage both thinking and doing, creating and calculating, self-expression and personal discipline.
Similarly, we seek balance in our approach to tech. At BVWS, we know that technology is an indispensable part of today’s world—and a big part of our local economy in Boulder. At the same time, we know that tech use, at home and at school, can negatively impact attention span, academic performance, and language acquisition in children, detracting from the engaging, sensory, and social experiences they need to grow.
We approach technology in school in a deliberate and thoughtful way. Through a social and human-centered approach to learning, alongside meaningful instruction about tech and digital media, we aim to prepare students to navigate the digital world—not just as capable tech users, but as empathetic, critical, and civic-minded citizens of their classrooms and communities.
A Progressive Approach to Tech
For many families, our commitment to a sensory-rich, screen-free, and nature-based childhood is what first draws them to Boulder Valley Waldorf School. In our preschool, kindergarten, and early grades classrooms, we don’t use educational technology and we encourage families to limit digital media at home. At our school, children in preschool, kindergarten, and elementary school engage in the social, hands-on, and sensory-rich learning that fuel cognitive, social, and physical growth.
An engaging blend of instruction, group work, hands-on experiences, creative projects, and discussion fuels the academic experience in middle school. While our focus remains on a holistic and hands-on approach to learning, we expect students to use some media and technology at this age, and we know that they will be required to use tech in high school. To support that transition, we offer touch keyboarding classes, as well as direct instruction in online research, reliable sourcing, and communications during middle school. This year’s students are using 3D printers not just with plug-and-play widgets but graphic design as part of the effort.
More importantly, we teach our middle school students to think critically about tech. Starting in 6th grade, students participate in the CyberCivics curriculum, which addresses issues like online communities, digital ethics, consent, privacy, artificial intelligence, and reliable sources. These teacher-led, discussion-based classes are an opportunity for students to share their questions, debate, and consider their own point of view, laying the groundwork for savvy and safe tech use in the future.
A Focus on 21st Century Skills
It may be counterintuitive, but limiting tech in education is the best way to prepare students for a tech-heavy future. Why? Because the most important skills in the digital age are the skills that tech cannot replace. While most children can quickly learn to use the latest apps or devices, there is no quick way to develop problem-solving skills, creativity, and social-emotional intelligence.
“Now is the time for leaders, across sectors, to develop new ways for students to learn that are more directly, and more dynamically, tied to where our economy is going, not where it has been,” writes Aneesh Raman, an executive at LinkedIn, and Maria Flynn in an op-ed in the New York Times. “Critically, that involves bringing the same level of rigor to training around people skills that we have brought to technical skills.”
From preschool to 8th grade, BVWS classrooms are social and hands-on environments. From circle time to strings ensembles, lab work to collaborative games, our program emphasizes activities that require students to collaborate, listen, and work together. Starting in middle school, students receive additional time to discuss social-emotional issues, including anti-bias education, sexual ethics, and health.
Notably, our school’s hands-on and experiential approach to STEM is designed to encourage the critical thinking that will serve students over the long term. Our teachers don’t introduce scientific principles through lectures and reading. Instead, a lesson begins with a lab experiment or hands-on project, encouraging students to observe natural phenomena, present hypotheses, and test theories before learning the established science—a pedagogical approach that is essential to Waldorf education and also gaining traction in mainstream education. By approaching technology with curiosity, open-mindedness, and critical facilities, our students are far more likely to have agency over tech tools, rather than becoming passive users.
“You build critical thinking skills like you learn to ride a bike. You have to practice it over and over,” says Brookings Institution education policy expert Rebecca Winthrop in an interview at PBS. “And I can’t do it for my kids, you can’t do it for your kids, no parent can do it for them. Kids have to struggle, they have to make mistakes. That is how we learn.”
Technology in Context
From lightbulbs to sewing machines to the computers in our school’s front office, technology is a part of life at Boulder Valley Waldorf School—just as it is across the world today. As educators, we want children to understand and appreciate the profound ways that technological innovations affect our society and the human experience. We also want them to understand how technology has been used as a tool and a resource throughout history.
Even without screens, our curriculum provides a meaningful context for understanding technology. For example, 3rd graders might discuss the development of sundials and sand clocks during a math unit on time-telling and measurements, exploring the deeper motivation behind the human invention of clocks. In 4th grade, children learn to write a formal letter and address an envelope, helping them build communication skills, which will later fuel their relationship to email, texting, and social media.
In middle school, these big-picture explorations become even more explicit in both our humanities and STEM curriculum. For example, 7th grade math class often includes an exploration of how algebra developed over thousands of years in Babylonia, Egypt, and Greece, creating a deeper context for algebra’s abstractions and formulas. In 8th grade, students build an electrical motor in 8th grade physics class while also studying the Industrial Revolution in a social studies block, uniting a physical project with its social significance.
A Balanced Future
Many BVWS graduates often go on to excel in math, science, tech, and engineering in high school and college. All of our graduates go on to utilize various forms of technology, in one way or another. But they do so with critical thinking skills, savvy, and a sense of balance.
Is this the type of education you want for your child? Learn more