This is a reminder about the Parent Seminar this Wednesday evening: 6 – 8:30 pm.

Here is an opportunity for us to have a discussion around this most important and sometimes controversial subject often affiliated with Waldorf pedagogy: Imagination and how to nurture it.

Along the same lines of this discussion is another topic, how children learn.  Below is a link to view some new and provocative work regarding how children learn. Sugata Mitra puts forth the idea that in our present age, where information and facts are so readily available via the world wide web, traditional teaching: memorizing facts and applying them to hypothetical situations, is completely irrelevant and gets in the way of meaningful learning by stifling natural curiosity.

[ted id=1678]

Mitra’s work and hypothesis are almost the antithesis of what traditional learning, even Waldorf education, espouses.  Mitra would like to see the educational model moved to “The Cloud”.  Yet his experiments in learning have merit.  His work begs the questions:

How do humans, especially children, learn?  What shape should education assume at this time in history?  What are we educating our children for?  What do they need to be prepared to do?

I hope you will view Mitra’s TED video embedded in this post, and be prepared to share your ideas about how the imagination and learning and educational models weave together to create an experience of “learning”. Or if you are unable to attend the seminar, I invite you to add your thoughts in the comments section below.

In addition, I will give you some ideas about how to cut commercialism out of you and your child’s life; ideas about how to explain this concept and practice to your child’s community of relatives and friends; sources for beautiful, imaginative toys and clothes and we will do something artistic.

The cost of this Seminar is 35.00 per family, and is open to all, whether or not your child is enrolled in our program.