In the essay "An introduction to Waldorf Education" Steiner wrote in 1919, he states, "Of prime importance for the cultivation of the child's feeling-life is that the child develops a relationship to the world in a way such as that which develops when we are inclined towards fantasy." But if your child is in a Waldorf school, you know the "Fantasy" in waldorf education , is not the fantasy that is found in Disney movies, rather, it is the organic process of leading a child down a path where they expand their imagination into other realms through fairy tales and imaginative play.
In addition, Waldorf educators have seen a direct link between the astral body and the watching of television. The child is driven by the imagination and fantasy during these early years (7-14) and starting at around the age of 14, the astral body is said to be driven into the physical body, which creates the onset of puberty. Television, because of the lack of imagination involved, the scenes and topics covered has brought on the astral stage of the body at an early age, which is one of the reasons why television is banned from Waldorf Schools.
Many studies show that television hinders this process in young children. A study done in 2007 by the British Psychological Society found that television affects the brain in many ways that would weaken the imagination in children. One of the television "effects" that translates to a weakening of imagination is called "Jump Cuts". A "jump cut" is a cut from a medium-to-medium shot or from a wide-to-wide shot. In the first shot, the subject is in one location, and when you cut to the second shot the subject is in another position … The effect is that they instantaneously jumped from one position to another. Not only is this creepy and unnatural but ultimately it fractures attention spans. Because of this, the brain is trained to reward itself with dopamine for being able to cope with this fractured attention span, translating to them becoming addicted to functioning with this fractured attention span. Other results of this addiction stem from the "over-scheduling" of children who are enrolled in mounds of after school programs and the ever presence of multi-tasking happening in their lives. Imagination is of course naturally lost when our mind can not simply focus.
Some might argue that Television and computer games are "Educational", but neuroscientists have performed brain scans and found that television and interactive media games do NOT stimulate intellectual areas of the brain!
Steiner said, " From birth to about the sixth year, the human being naturally gives himself up to everything immediately surrounding him in the human environment, and thus, through the imitative instinct, gives form to his own nascent powers." If television had been around when Steiner said this, I believe he would have spoke of the effects of television here! He went on to say, "From this period on, the child's soul becomes open to take in consciously what the educator and teacher give, which affects the child as a result of the teacher's natural authority." With that said, what do you think happens when the Television is the educator? During this time in a child's like he is imitating everything that surrounds him, therefore everything and everybody becomes a "teacher". Many parents have been embarrassed by something their child says or does, saying "I don't know where they picked that up from, this is so strange!?" When obviously, if you are allowing your child to watch television you are opening up your child to many things that ultimately you don't want them exposed to or imitating.
Television as well as video, DVDs, computers, and electronic games all have a very powerful effect on children. It can take several days for the effects of one single video to wear off, and if they are watching everyday, the effects may not wear off at all. You might notice that many children now speak in 'cartoon voices', make 'sound effects' to accompany their jerky movement (punching, kicking) and obsessively repeat lines from movies or shows that they have scene over and over again. This is now regarded as "normal" childish behavior, when in reality it is coming from the Media not from the children themselves.
Steiner said in the book Spiritual Ground for Education, "What is learned more slowly at any given age is more surely and healthily absorbed by the organism, then what is crammed into it." This is why when we give a lesson in Waldorf School we allow the child time to reflect, often giving the same lesson twice. Often times the child is sent home to sleep and reflect and form mental pictures from the lesson, and then when they come back the next day it has been digested, and then the lesson can begin to really sink in to a child's being. That said, another concern about television watching is that it could hinder the child's ability to reflect on and digest the lessons they were taught during the day. If children are watching television or playing video games during this learning process, these media devices may just over-ride the lesson. The child would then instead of creating it's own images of that days lesson, be filled with images of the television or media that was watched. Once again, his own imagination depressed. This would then tie into a child's inability to concentrate or understand the lesson the following day, as they were not able to properly digest it.
There are so many studies that are showing the negative effects of Television and Media, such as obesity, autism, onset of early puberty, and even diabetes. Steiner believed that health of the body was greatly affected by how it learned and how a person learned was also greatly effected by their own health. That said, and knowing what we know today about the health effects of Media on the body, we can only assume that Steiner would not approve the use of television and other media outlets as a way of teaching or educating.