This is the first of five posts about five amazing speakers who have made an incredible impact on our school since our professional development event called Engage and inspire – the possibilities are endless in March this year.
You can read more about the conference in this general post: http://bit.ly/kRCP8W
I have had the pleasure of hearing Sugata talk at seven different conferences just this year, that is right seven! Each time he has spoken about the same topic but every single time without fail I have learnt several new things and heard several new examples which is fantastic. You can’t say that about many educational speakers who every time you see them even weeks apart they have something completely different to say. I am sure you know who Sugata is but if you don’t have a look at his wiki here: http://sugatam.wikispaces.com/
He has certainly inspired me and this year I have carried out a couple of my own ‘hole in the wall’ experiments which I have now completed and will blog about soon. I have also had the pleasure of catching him on his own to discuss some of these principles.
I would like to end this post with some comments about what Sugata spoke about from some of the delegates as I feel this is more appropriate than me saying what I thought of it.
“Sugata highlighted the impact of poverty on pupil’s ability to learn due to the lack of technology, not ability. This demonstrated the need for access to items such as netbooks with in all subject areas. I think he also showed that at times we can put limits on what we believe pupils can achieve, but this is certainly not the case. They can surprise us, we just have to let them.”
“We are facilitators as well as teachers. There’s no need to over simplify; our students are not stupid! I am going to use "the hole in the wall" technique in my lessons. I am going to set up a permanent "teach yourself corner" and offer different grammatical questions, linguistic concepts for the students to research on their own.”
“That children are capable of, and motivated to, learn things for themselves. That asking the right questions is always more important than knowing all the answers. The importance of group work and encouragement (ie the "granny" style of mentoring).”
“That the capability and desire to learn is deep rooted in each of us.
That if you can tap into the potential of young people, they can amaze with their ability, adaptability and sheer determination to make things work.”
Have you heard Sugata talk? What did you think? You can follow Sugata on twitter @sugatam or see him at a conference near you in the future.
I loved what Sugata Mitra said at your conference about ‘heavy lifting’ via the observation on the Indian man carrying a heavy fridge-freezer up a steep incline with the load on his back secured via his forehead by a strap. Asked how he could take such a heavy load up a mountain, the man, his head bowed, said that he could not not see the mountain. He just focused on the ground in front of his feet as he took one step at a time.
Then, with a mischievous smile, Sugata said that we should not take life too seriously. We should enjoy it. Who knows where it could take us…