WDS Healthy Teach Committee

This past August, over one hundred Westchester Day School parents and prospective parents gathered for a timely and spirited discussion on Jonathan Haidt’s latest bestseller, The Anxious Generation. Devorah and Ed Neiger, WDS parents, hosted a magnificent spread in their backyard which added to the excitement of the initiative. This gathering was the kickoff event of the WDS Healthy Tech Committee, a committee of over 20 parents committed to helping WDS embrace healthy policies and norms around technology, both in school and in our community. At the event, Miriam Krupka, Associate Principal of the Ramaz Upper School led a lively discussion on the main takeaways of the book (i.e. that the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit in the early 2010s is a direct cause of the shift to “phone-based childhoods”) and the ways Jewish tradition can serve as an invaluable guide as we grapple with this challenge.