ANDREW KEEN writes in The Sunday Times (June 15, 2015) on E-learning, which Indian universities are promoting as the latest and best. It turns out that Silicon Valley IT bigwigs, all frantically developing the perfect software that can finally eliminate human teachers, (a goal being promoted enthusiastically by the Indian system through Massive Online Open Courses MOOC), are themselves sending their children to ‘Waldorf Schools’, in which computers, tablets and smartphones are banned (yes, indeed, BANNED), because, says the Media and Technology Philosophy Statement of Waldorf School:

Waldorf educators believe it is far more important for students to interact with one another and their teachers, and work with real materials than to interface with electronic media or technology.

Oh my. Are they taking us back to the Dark Ages, as Indian teachers want us to?

Or (Heavy Irony Warning) – do children need ‘traditional’ education with human teachers and human interaction, so that they can develop the creative skills necessary to develop the software that can eliminate humans? 

And of course, it will inevitably be e-education for the masses, and increasingly expensive “traditional education” for the elites. As Keen puts it:

It is yet another irony that, over in California, the Waldorf School of the Peninsula says it provides a “Renaissance education in Silicon Valley”. While an online humanities-lite education is good enough for the masses, the children of successful venture capitalists and digital entrepreneurs are being educated in an unambiguously low-tech environment dominated by the physical relationship between teacher and student and a body of core knowledge that stretches back for hundreds of years.

Keen quotes William Deresiewicz:

Moocs, Deresiewicz argues, are “about reinforcing existing hierarchies and monetising institutional prestige. The kids at Harvard get to interact with their professors. The kids at San Jose State get to watch the kids at Harvard interact with their professors.”

Full article by Andrew Keen starts here:

Online learning is yet to take off in Britain as it has in America, where the market research firm Global Industry Analysts estimates that revenue for the online learning sector will reach more than $100bn (Pounds 64bn) this year.

But if on-line education really is the future, why are so many IT moguls choosing traditional schooling for their own children?

Among the rich and powerful families of Silicon Valley, the new-new thing is to give their children a “Waldorf” education that outlaws computers, tablets and smartphones. Continue reading Do as iSay, not as iDo – Silicon Valley’s two faces on learning: Andrew Keen →