I kicked off my boycott of Black Friday with a velvety cup of coffee, followed by a hike with a friend and some excellent trail mix (containing pumpkin seeds, dried cranberry seeds, banana chips among other goodies.) We chatted about the outdoors and how kids are rarely spotted without some form of technology to distract them or to entertain them. A regular (pregnant with her third child) customer at work comes in every week to have a 3 hour chat with her friends, and she always brings her two children with her. After about an hour of eating (which is a long time for a 3 year old) her daughter usually starts to wander around the cafe, checks out what's behind the swinging double doors that lead into the kitchen, and plays with the swinging lid of the trash can. Her mom is very sweet, but at this point usually hands her daughter her iphone, and the three year old navigates the software all on her own and finds games to play. It's brilliant but terrifying that a three-year old can do this.
In Waldorf schools, technology for young children is taboo. Parents and teachers meet and agree to keep real play in the home, and avoid media until the kids are at least 12 or 13. When I went to San Francisco Waldorf, the parents unanimously agreed to keep kids off of screens and playing with each other, exploring the outdoors, doing arts and crafts, and other real things. But at the Honolulu Waldorf School I found that most parents didn't really care to enforce this at home. (I know this from my own experiences with my classmates, as well as from the extensive babysitting I've done for Waldorf families.) This could come from the heavy influence of the asian culture here (that is not meant as a racist comment, but just that technology is a big thing in countries like Japan.)
For my senior project I did some job shadowing in the kindergarten and there were some very disturbed children. Some were extremely challenged socially, and couldn't relate to other kids or the teachers (the teacher later told me that this was a child from a high-media family) some seemed bored (let me tell you, Waldorf kindergarten is the most UN-boring place in the world!!) and others couldn't focus at all.
I really wonder how those children will grow up. If that have nothing else but a screen in front of them their whole lives, how can they possibly develop the critical thinking skills that they'll need to solve problems in life? Life is not like a video game or a computer, where all answers come from the click of a button.
Yes, we've created amazing algorithms and programs that can do things for us, but does everyone really have access to them? Yes, perhaps everyone in the next generation will grow up with an iphone (and whatever other crazy inventions will follow in the next few years), and will never need to look in a physical dictionary again, and maybe language class will become obsolete, because Google Translate is always there. What about all those people that can't afford those fancy tools of this decade? What kind of rift will this create in our society? It seems like half of the country is slowly morphing into robotic, boxed in, electronic beings, wired to some device or other, and the other half of the country is still musical, artistic, inventive and engages in labor. I think we're still at a place where the rift isn't so great, and the true "old school" people are just senior citizens forgotten in their homes. But what about in the next twenty years? How will todays ipad children grow up to be players in the bigger picture? How will they possibly be able to relate to anyone who's not from their clique of electronically raised people? I think we're at the brink of a completely artificial generation. Artificial entertainment, artificial communication, artificial art, artificial food, artificial happiness. Hell, we're even talking about artificial intelligence.... Where are we going with this, and why? Why don't we want anything to be real?
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In the evening I went to Art and Flea with my Swedes, and we had an amazing time. Art and Flea is a great event in Honolulu, which is basically exactly what it sounds like, art and flea-market combined. Vendors set up tables with handmade jewelry, crafts, art for sale, as well as vintage clothing, shoes and other cool items. There's always a theme, contests, food, and live music. The four of us sat down at a little kiddie-activity-table that was trying to promote back-to-art activities for kids instead of media. I spoke with the two parents who recently opened an arts & crafts store for kids, and they also spoke of this "age of screen-addiction". What's interesting is that they weren't Waldorf parents. They knew of the school but not in great depth, and I found it fascinating that they still were so anti-media, pro-art. I mean, of course it's not a value that's unique to Waldorf schools, but I think it's rare now-a-days. It made me so happy to hear it from the outside. We sat at that table for over an hour and drew, and drew and drew, and had a blast!
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After a few years of high stress and little sleep, this year off is really helping me. My memory is coming back to me. I have a great memory, but I noticed that it began to fade with each sleepless night. Same goes for my dreams. When I was a child I dreamt the longest, wildest most vivid and premonitory dreams, but the older I grew and as the stress increased my dreams ceased altogether. I've noticed their return in the past two months especially. I dream every night now, and I remember my dreams and I like them. I have that saturday-morning, wiggle-my-toes-in-my-soft-sheets sort of feeling because I can experience that wonderful slipping out of fantasy back into the reality of a new day feeling.
Today is my sister's birthday and I am about to bake her a chocolate cloud cake with banana chocolate icing. I love baking! A few days later I'll get to bake my own birthday cake. Most people find it funny that I'd bake my own cake (I'm not sure if baking one's own cafe is some sort of faux pas but I take delight in it!). I'm going to make a Beet-Chocolate cake. Roasted beets and 70% cacao icelandic chocolate.... mmmm it's a good week.
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