In today's encore selection—from Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think
by Peter H. Diamandia and Steven Kotler. A creative approach to education:
"At
the time, Mitra was head of research and development for NIIT
Technologies, a top computer software and development company in New
Delhi, India. His posh twenty-first-century office abutted an urban slum
but was kept separate by a tall brick wall. So Mitra designed a simple
experiment. He cut a hole in the wall and installed a computer and a
track pad, with the screen and the pad facing into the slum. He did it
in such a way that theft was not a problem, then connected the computer
to the Internet, added a web browser, and walked away.
"The
kids who lived in the slums could not speak English, did not know how
to use a computer, and had no knowledge of the Internet, but they were
curious. Within minutes,
they'd figured out how to point and click. By
the end of the first day, they were surfing the web and-even more
importantly-teaching one another how to surf the web. These results
raised more questions than they answered. Were they real? Did these kids
really teach themselves how to use this computer, or did someone,
perhaps out of sight of Mitra's hidden video camera, explain the
technology to them?
"So
Mitra moved the experiment to the slums of Shivpuri, where, as he says,
'I'd been assured no one had ever taught anybody anything.' He got
similar results. Then he moved it to a rural village and found the same
thing. Since then, this experiment has been replicated all over India,
and all over the world, and always with the same outcome: kids, working
in small, unsupervised groups, and without any formal training, could
learn to use computers very quickly and with a great degree of
proficiency.
"This
led Mitra to an ever-expanding series of experiments about what else
kids could learn on their own. One of the more ambitious of these was
conducted in the small village of Kalikkuppam in southern India. This
time Mitra decided to see if a bunch of impoverished Tamil-speaking,
twelve-year-olds could learn to use the Internet, which they'd never
seen before; to teach themselves biotechnology, a subject they'd never
heard of; in English, a language none of them spoke. 'All I did was tell
them that there was some very difficult information on this computer,
they probably wouldn't understand any of it, and I'll be back to test
them on it in a few months.'
"Two
months later, he returned and asked the students if they'd understood
the material. A young girl raised her hand. 'Other than the fact that
improper replication of the DNA molecule causes genetic disease,' she
said, 'we've understood nothing.' In fact, this was not quite the case.
When Mitra tested them, scores averaged around 30 percent. From 0
percent to 30 percent in two months with no formal instruction was a
fairly remarkable result, but still not good enough to pass a standard
exam. So Mitra brought in help. He recruited a slightly older girl from
the village to serve as a tutor. She didn't know any biotechnology, but
was told to use the 'grandmother method': just stand behind the kids
and provide encouragement. 'Wow, that's cool, that's fantastic, show me
something else!' Two months later, Mitra came back. This time, when
tested, average scores had jumped to 50 percent, which was the same
average as high-school kids studying bio-tech at the best schools in New
Delhi.
"Next Mitra
started refining the method. He began installing computer terminals in
schools. Rather than giving students a broad subject to learn-for
example, biotechnology-he started asking directed questions such as 'Was
World War II good or bad?' The students could use every available
resource to answer the question, but schools were asked to restrict the
number of Internet portals to one per every four students because, as
Matt Ridley wrote in the Wall Street Journal,
'one child in front of a computer learns little; four discussing and
debating learn a lot.' When they were tested on the subject matter
afterward (without use of the computer), the mean score was 76 percent.
That's pretty impressive on its own, but the question arose as to the
real depth of learning. So Mitra came back two months later, retested
the students, and got the exact same results. This wasn't just deep
learning, this was an unprecedented retention of information. ...
"Taken
together, this work reverses a bevy of educational practices. Instead
of top-down instruction, [these 'self-organized learning environments']
are bottom up. Instead of making students learn on their own, this work
is collaborative. Instead of a formal in-school setting for instruction,
the Hole-in-the-Wall method relies on a playground-like environment.
Most importantly, minimally invasive education doesn't require
teachers. Currently there's a projected global shortage of 18 million
teachers over the next decade."
Author: Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler
Title: Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think
Publisher: Free Press
Date: Copyright 2012 by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler
Pages: 174-176
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