I am sure that you already know all about Prof Sugata Mitra and his hole in the wall project. If you don’t then where have you been? I am not going to try and explain what it is for you as I really wouldn’t be able to do it justice you can read more about it here:
http://www.hole-in-the-wall.com/
The best way to learn about it is for Mitra is for you to go and listen to him tell his story – it is simply inspirational. This is the first time I have heard him speak and I am so excited that he will be working with our school at our school conference in March next year.
Sugata started by saying that “Out of about a billion children on the planet 50 million have more than enough of what they need as in adequate resources such as health care, education etc. 200 million children have adequate resources but 750 million don’t. You can think of this as a pyramid, the pyramid can represent any country in the world, it isn’t just developing countries but each pyramid would obviously have different proportions.”
He then spoke about aspirations and opportunities that the high proportion children with inadequate resources. My particular favourite quote from a child was this:
“Why should I work hard all my life to me something like a professor when I can earn more money driving a bus?”
He then went onto talk about the interaction of technology in learning and just what can be achieved if you don’t limit a child’s potential. Sugata spent some time with Arthur C Clarke exploring this concept and he mentioned this quote which I have heard many times before but is fantastic.
“Any teacher that can be replaced by a machine should be”
Sugata has inspired me to carry out a project similar to the hole in the wall this year so I will be starting to plan this soon and will be posting more details of this as it develops. Have you heard Sugata ‘s story? What do you think about it?