A Waldorf Teacher Looks at ChatGPT
By Sarah Barrett
A little over one hundred years ago at the start of the Waldorf education movement, Rudolf Steiner and the first Waldorf teachers surely could not have imagined the evolution of technology we have experienced in the last 100 years. From video games to smart phones, the Internet, Zoom, FaceTime, social media, and AI -- all were largely unimaginable. As the recent generations of students have grown up in these fascinating times, we as educators must figure out where this all fits into our rich and nourishing curriculum. After all, open-mindedness is one of the virtues Steiner challenges us to embody. Perhaps it does not serve the future of the Waldorf education movement for us to turn our backs on these technologies and reject them altogether.
Certainly the power of taking the soul-food story from the Main Lesson into the child’s sleep is lessened by the use of screens in the evening before bed. Parents and teachers have tried to fight this battle for the last couple of decades, and at the very least, calling for balance and limitations, especially on school days.
Now we are faced with a new technology that is transforming the written word as we know it and threatening our creativity. Programs like ChatGPT can write a lovely sounding poem, story or essay when fed simple notes or even just a topic in a matter of seconds. I prompted ChatGPT to write a poem about the evolution of parenting, using the metaphor of the parent as the sun and then the moon as their children grow up. I was astounded at the beautiful poem I received from the AI tool before I could count to five.
Not only this, but with the accessibility of self-publishing on websites like Amazon, it is legal to have ChatGPT write a book listing you as the author as long as you note that you used AI to help you write the book. This sounds like a horrifying prospect to every teacher out there, I’m sure. And our students are certainly aware of this capability, and many have dabbled in it to write papers.
How can we remain open-minded to such technology and strike a balance between its appropriate and inappropriate use? Is there an appropriate use? Or should we rally all our efforts against it turning it into a forbidden fruit for this young generation? It may be that more time is needed to fully answer these questions.
Let’s start by remembering some of the guiding principles behind the Waldorf curriculum. Rudolf Steiner speaks over and over about our goal of freedom in thinking. Waldorf education seeks to awaken the creativity and unique individual thoughts within each child so they can step forward as change agents. Creating an environment to awaken this creativity is essential. Schools, curriculum, and even parents can become caught up in test scores, rote memorization, and “busy work” leaving no space for calling forth each child’s authentic capacities for critical thinking and creativity that make each one of us uniquely ourselves.
Lotus & Ivy Guest Speaker, Daniel Packer, said at a recent Grown-Up Workshop that “the experience of being creative is full of every virtue….reverence, gratitude, devotion to a higher possibility, beauty, fulfillment, perseverance” and more. Being full of virtue is surely a sign that something is profoundly right and true and worthy of our striving.
All day long every day there are things that can intervene in our freedom in thinking. As we react to all that life throws at us, we are pushed away from witnessing our true capacities. The purpose of Waldorf education is to awaken the creative being within each of us and in the children so as to continue to bring forward this grand evolution of humanity. And the more we strengthen the muscle of thinking and creativity, the more thoughts and creativity we will have; and a stronger sense for what is real or true.
In the end, what truly matters is not completing the task, i.e., the essay, but all the virtues one gains from the process of writing it. Because in the process is the practice of calling forth one’s own thinking and creativity. This is what Waldorf education provides.
I have heard other Waldorf teachers speak about the soul-body of humans that does not exist in a machine, and this soul, for lack of a more secular term, does perhaps put more weight to the richness of loveliness of the human thought. A topic for exploring further on another day.
So where does ChatGPT fit into our curriculum today? I think for our students now, it can be a fun thing to play around with, and it is important for our students to have familiarity with technology. We can learn from AI. But we must help the students separate its use from when they are having fun and when they are called to use their own thinking and creativity. And it is up to us to be honest with them and not avoid the topic or treat it as a forbidden fruit, but to talk to them about the importance of developing their own thinking capacities – so they can be discerning decision makers and problem solvers when life gets complicated and when we are faced with the unknown of the next 50 years.
At Lotus & Ivy, our 2024 policy for using AI is the following:
Lotus & Ivy Artificial Intelligence Usage Policy
Our highest purpose as Waldorf educators is to create an environment that allows the students to develop their whole being to its fullest potential. Waldorf education seeks to awaken the creativity and unique individual thoughts within each child so they can step forward as adults as change agents in our world.
Creating an environment to awaken this creativity is essential and is our goal at Lotus & Ivy. Schools, curriculum, and even parents can become caught up in test scores, rote memorization, and “busy work” leaving no space for calling forth each child’s authentic capacities for critical thinking and creativity that make each one of us uniquely ourselves.
We believe the value of what a human being thinks and creates will always be higher than that of a machine because authentic human thinking comes from places of wonder, heartfelt emotion, feelings of the senses, ancestral wisdom in our cells, and sometimes mysterious places we don't understand.
The availability of artificial intelligence must not be hidden from our students because we must educate them to grow in and learn about the world in which they live. But we must prepare them to be thinkers in and of themselves. Using AI to write an essay is like learning to play basketball by watching a video of someone playing basketball rather than taking up a regular practice in playing basketball oneself. Maybe the video will give one strategies or technical pointers, but to reach one's fullest potential as a player, one must embody the physical practice over a period of time.
Lotus & Ivy students are not permitted to use AI to write original work for class. If AI is used to write an assignment, the assignment will not be accepted and a zero will be given for the assignment. The student's grown-ups will be notified. If using AI for research, students must verify the content using primary sources.
One of Steiner's basic exercises is to cultivate open-mindedness. While we remain open minded about the possible good use of AI in the future, we believe it should not replace the student's daily practice of using their own capacities to develop their thinking in their school work.
Our teachers use AI detection software and if it is suspected AI was used for an assignment, the teacher reaches out to the student and/or the student’s grown-ups and gently explains their findings. The teacher and family work to support the student.
It will be exciting to witness how this policy may evolve or expand. Please share your thoughts with us on this topic! It is an evolving topic, and we want to hear your thoughts too.