Northern California Waldorf Teachers Conference 2024

The Role of Waldorf Education in Navigating the 21st Century with keynote speaker Ben Klocek

The traditional values of Waldorf education were deeply challenged during the pandemic when teachers, students, and parents moved into online modes of teaching. It was an unprecedented emergency that required compromise in the interest of staying connected with our students and families. In the process, a door that Waldorf education had tried to firmly regulate for decades was thrown open and now many Waldorf teachers and schools feel uncertain about where to place themselves in the relentless rollout of digital technology.

Is this the new norm? What is developmentally appropriate? What new work needs to be done and what can we say to our students and their parents to build a common understanding of how to live with technology?

Moving forward, how do we find a contemporary and healthy relationship to being the “doorkeepers” of technology’s effects on children? We need to be both better informed and more proactive in rediscovering appropriate new thresholds that are true to the underlying intentions of Waldorf education and also true to the realities of our time.

Waldorf graduate and teacher Ben Klocek will lead us in re-finding our feet, walking our talk, and sharing an inspiring vision for a healthy relationship to technology as we navigate these developments of our time.

Ben Klocek, a web designer, teacher, and Sacramento Waldorf School alum, has worked in tech for over 20 years and has been studying how our use of screen technology affects our lives. He teaches technology and woodworking in a public Waldorf charter school. He is the father of two children, ages 12 and 14, and is an avid naturalist, artist, and gardener.