Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education
Summary
TLDRThe speaker recounts his journey in education, starting with an experiment in New Delhi where children in a slum taught themselves to use the internet. He explores how children worldwide can learn with minimal guidance, changing accents to match technology and teaching complex subjects like biotechnology. The 'hole-in-the-wall' experiment led to the concept of self-organized learning environments (SOLEs) and the 'granny cloud,' where online mediators assist students. The narrative suggests education is a self-organizing system with learning as an emergent phenomenon, proposing a scalable model for educational transformation.
Takeaways
- π The speaker began his work in 1999 with an experiment in New Delhi, highlighting the global issue of good teachers being absent in areas where they are needed the most.
- π‘ He embedded a computer in a slum wall in New Delhi to see if children could learn to use it and the internet without formal instruction.
- π¨βπ Children showed an innate ability to learn and use technology for educational purposes, even with limited prior exposure to computers or the internet.
- π£οΈ In Hyderabad, children with strong accents were able to modify their speech to match a speech-to-text interface, demonstrating adaptability and learning through interaction.
- π The speaker's experiments expanded across India and other parts of the world, consistently showing that groups of children can achieve educational objectives through self-organized learning.
- π In South Africa and Cambodia, the introduction of technology led to improvements in English and arithmetic skills, indicating the potential for technology to enhance learning outcomes.
- π§ The speaker hypothesizes that education is a self-organizing system where learning emerges naturally, suggesting a new paradigm for educational theory and practice.
- π΅ The 'granny cloud' concept was introduced, where volunteers provide remote assistance and mentoring to children, showcasing the potential of community involvement in education.
- π« The Souls (self-organized learning environments) initiative was created to provide an infrastructure that supports group learning and access to broad educational resources.
- π The speaker's work suggests that with the right tools and environment, children can achieve remarkable educational milestones, challenging traditional educational methods and structures.
Q & A
What problem did the speaker identify at the beginning of the experiment?
-The speaker identified that good teachers are often unwilling to go to areas where they are needed the most, particularly in places that are considered troubled or underdeveloped.
What was the 'Hole in the Wall' experiment initiated in New Delhi?
-The 'Hole in the Wall' experiment involved embedding a computer into the wall of a slum in New Delhi, allowing children who had no prior experience with computers or the internet to use it without instruction. The experiment demonstrated that children can teach themselves how to use technology on their own.
What was the conclusion drawn from the experiment regarding children's learning abilities?
-The speaker concluded that children can learn to use computers and the internet on their own, without formal instruction, as long as they have the interest and opportunity to explore.
How did the children in the South Indian village respond to the speech-to-text interface?
-The children initially found that the computer did not understand their accents. However, after two months, they had adapted their speech to resemble a neutral British accent that the computer could understand, demonstrating their ability to teach themselves how to communicate with the technology.
What were Arthur C. Clarke's two significant observations mentioned in the script?
-Arthur C. Clarke stated that 'A teacher that can be replaced by a machine should be,' and that 'If children have interest, then education happens.' These observations supported the speakerβs belief in the power of self-directed learning.
What notable achievement did the children in the South Indian village accomplish regarding biotechnology?
-The children, who spoke only Tamil, were able to teach themselves the basics of biotechnology in English. One girl even grasped that 'improper replication of the DNA molecule causes genetic diseases,' which amazed the speaker.
What was the 'Granny Cloud' initiative, and how did it work?
-The 'Granny Cloud' initiative involved British grandmothers who volunteered to give children in remote areas an hour of broadband time weekly via Skype. They acted as mediators, encouraging and praising the children as they explored topics on their own.
What did the speaker observe during the experiment with 10-year-olds in Turin, Italy?
-The speaker gave the children English questions, even though they only spoke Italian. Using Google Translate, the children quickly translated the questions, researched answers, and even corrected the speakerβs spelling of 'Pythagoras,' demonstrating self-organized learning in a language they didnβt speak.
What is the concept of a 'self-organizing system' as it relates to education?
-A self-organizing system is one where structure and learning emerge without explicit instruction. In education, this means that with access to the right resources, children can learn on their own, driven by interest and curiosity, without needing constant external guidance.
What future goals did the speaker outline for the Self-Organized Learning Environment (SOLE) system?
-The speaker outlined a goal of reaching 1 billion children with 100 million mediators and 10 million SOLEs (Self-Organized Learning Environments) over the next decade, with a projected cost of $180 billion, aiming to fundamentally change global education.
Outlines
π The Hole-in-the-Wall Experiment
The speaker begins by discussing the irony that good teachers are often unwilling to work in areas where they are needed the most, such as developing countries. To address this, the speaker initiated an experiment in New Delhi in 1999, embedding a computer in a slum wall with internet access. The children, who had limited exposure to education and technology, were able to learn and use the computer on their own. This experiment was then replicated across India and other parts of the world, demonstrating that children can teach themselves with computers and the internet, regardless of their background. The speaker also experimented with a speech-to-text interface, where children with heavy accents managed to modify their speech to match the accent of the software, showing their ability to adapt and learn.
π Self-Learning and Educational Objectives
The speaker continued to explore the potential of self-learning with computers. In Hyderabad, children with strong accents were given a speech-to-text interface and were able to adapt their speech to match the software's understanding. The speaker then took the experiment to South Africa, where a 15-year-old boy used the internet for games, animals, and music, and also sent emails. The speaker observed that children in rural Cambodia and India began using the internet for educational purposes, such as searching for homework help, leading to improvements in their English language skills. The speaker set an ambitious goal to see if children could teach themselves biotechnology in English, which they achieved to a significant extent, even without formal teaching.
π« Experimenting with Group Learning
The speaker moved to Newcastle and conducted an experiment with 32 children in Gateshead, fine-tuning the self-learning method. The children were organized into groups of four, each with access to one computer. They were encouraged to collaborate and use various online resources to solve problems. The speaker provided GCSE questions, and the children were able to solve them effectively using online tools. After two months, the children's performance on a paper test without computers was as high as their performance with computers, indicating that they had internalized the information. The speaker also introduced the concept of the 'granny cloud,' where British grandmothers volunteered to provide online instruction, demonstrating the potential for community involvement in education.
π The Power of Self-Organizing Learning Systems
The speaker concluded with an experiment in Turin, where 10-year-old students with no English language skills were able to use Google Translate to understand and answer questions posed in English. This demonstrated the power of self-organizing learning systems, where structure and knowledge emerge without explicit instruction. The speaker suggests that education is a self-organizing system where learning is an emergent phenomenon. He proposes a vision where 1 billion children could be reached through 100 million mediators, such as the 'granny cloud,' with the potential to revolutionize education with 10 million self-organized learning environments (SOLEs) over 10 years.
Mindmap
Keywords
π‘Developing Countries
π‘Hole-in-the-Wall Experiment
π‘Self-Learning
π‘Educational Objectives
π‘Speech-to-Text Interface
π‘Granny Cloud
π‘Self-Organizing Learning Environments (SOULS)
π‘Mediator
π‘Emergence
π‘Biotechnology Education
π‘Deep Learning
Highlights
Good teachers are often unwilling to work in the areas where they are needed the most.
An experiment in New Delhi embedded a computer in a slum wall, showing children's ability to learn with minimal guidance.
Children taught each other and engaged with technology within four hours of first exposure.
Groups of children can learn to use computers and the internet independently, regardless of their location.
Children in rural India adapted their accents to match a speech-to-text interface, demonstrating self-learning capabilities.
Children can achieve educational objectives through self-organized learning with the aid of technology.
The 'hole-in-the-wall' experiment showed that children can teach themselves complex subjects like biotechnology.
A local accountant, using the 'method of the grandmother', helped children improve their understanding of biotechnology.
In Newcastle, a self-organized learning experiment with children resulted in high educational outcomes.
The 'granny cloud' concept involves elderly volunteers providing educational support over the internet.
Children can quickly grasp complex concepts with the right motivation and resources, as seen in a Hinduism lesson.
The Souls project aims to create self-organized learning environments with group learning and mediator support.
Self-organizing systems in education can lead to emergent phenomena, such as unanticipated learning outcomes.
The potential exists to scale this method to impact a billion children with the help of millions of mediators.
A vision for the future involves 10 million Souls, a significant investment, and a decade to revolutionize education.
The speaker concludes with a call to action to embrace this self-organizing approach to education.
Transcripts
well that's kind of an obvious statement
up there I started with that sentence
about 12 years ago and I started in the
context of developing countries but
you're sitting here from every corner of
the world so if you think of a map of
your country I think you realize that up
for every country on earth you could
draw little circles to say these are
places where good teachers won't go on
top of that those are the places from
where trouble comes so we have an ironic
problem good teachers don't want to go
to just those places where they're
needed the most
I started in 1999 to try and address
this problem with an experiment which
was a very simple experiment in New
Delhi
I basically embedded a computer into a
wall of a slum in New Delhi the children
barely went to school they didn't know
any English that never seen a computer
before and they didn't know what the
internet was I connected high-speed
Internet to it it's about three feet off
the ground turned it on and left it
there
after this we noticed a couple of
interesting things which you'll see but
I repeated this all over India and then
through a large part of the world and
notice that children will learn to do
what they want to learn to do this is
the first experiment that we did eight
year old boy on your right teaching his
student the six-year-old girl and he was
teaching her how to browse this boy here
in the middle of Central India
this is in a rajasthan village where the
children recorded their own music and
then played it back to each other and in
the process they enjoyed themselves
thoroughly they did all of this in four
hours after seeing the computer for the
first time in another South Indian
village these boys here had assembled a
video camera and
to take the photograph of a bumblebee
they downloaded it from disney.com or
one of these websites 14 days after
putting the computer in their village so
at the end of it we concluded that
groups of children can learn to use
computers and the internet on their own
irrespective of who or where they were
at that point I became a little more
ambitious and decided to see what else
could children do with a computer we
started off with a experiment in
Hyderabad India where I gave a group of
children they spoke English with a very
strong Telugu accent I gave them a
computer with a speech-to-text interface
which you now get free with Windows and
asked them to speak into it so when they
spoke into it the computer typed out
giver ish so they said well it doesn't
understand anything of what we are
saying so I said yeah I'll leave it here
for 2 months make yourself understood to
the computer so the children said how do
we do that and I said I don't know
actually and I and I left 2 months later
and this is now documented in the
information technology for International
Development Journal their accents had
changed and were remarkably close to the
neutral British accent in which I had
trained the speech-to-text synthesizer
in other words they were all speaking
like James Tooley so you can they could
do that on their own after that I
started to experiment with various other
things that they might learn to do on
their own I got an interesting phone
call once from Colombo from the late
arthur c clarke who said i want to see
what's going on and he couldn't travel
so i went over there he said two
interesting things a teacher that can be
replaced by a machine should be
the second thing is that was that if
children have interest then education
happens and I was doing that in the
field so every time I would watch it and
think of possible and definitely help
people because children could navigate
the web and findings which interests
them and when you've got interest then
you have education
I took the experiment to South Africa
this is a 15 year old boy she is my
channel I play games animals and music
and I asked him do you send emails and
he said yes and they hop across the
ocean this is in Cambodia rural Cambodia
very silly arithmetic game which no
child would play inside the classroom or
at home they would you know throw it
back at you that say this is very boring
if you leave it on the pavement and if
all the adults go away then they will
show off with each other about what they
can do which is what these children are
doing they trying to multiply I think
and all over India at the end of about
two years children were beginning to
Google their homework as a result the
teachers reported tremendous
improvements in their English rapid
improvement and all sorts of things I
said there they've become really deep
thinkers and so on and so forth and and
indeed they had I mean if there's stuff
on Google why would you need to stuff it
into your head so at the end of the next
four years I decided that groups of
children can navigate the internet to
achieve educational objectives on their
own at that time a large amount of money
had come in to Newcastle University to
improve schooling in India so Newcastle
gave me a call I said I'll do it from
Delhi they said there's no way you're
going to handle the million pounds worth
of
University money sitting in Delhi so in
2006 I bought myself a heavy overcoat
and moved to Newcastle I wanted to test
the limits of this system the first
experiment I did out of Newcastle was
actually done in India and I set myself
an impossible target can tamil-speaking
twelve-year-old children in a South
Indian village teach themselves
biotechnology in English on their own
and I thought I'll test them they will
get a zero
I'll give them material I'll come back
and test them they'll get another zero
I'll go back and say yes we need
teachers for certain things I called in
26 children they all came in there I
told them that there's some really
difficult stuff on this computer I
wouldn't be surprised if you didn't
understand anything it's all in English
and I'm going left them with it I came
back after 2 months and the 26 children
marched in looking very very quiet I
said well did you look at any of the
steps as he as we did did you understand
anything no nothing so I said well how
long did you practice on it before you
decided that you understood nothing I
said we look at it every day
so I said for 2 months you were looking
at stuff you didn't understand so a
twelve-year-old girl raises her hand and
says literally apart from the fact that
improper replication of the DNA molecule
causes genetic disease we've understood
nothing else
took me three years to publish that it's
just been published in the British
Journal of educational technology one of
the referees who have read the paper
said it's too good to be true which was
not very nice well one of the girls had
taught herself to become the teacher
and that's her over there remember they
don't study English I've edited out the
last bit well she said when I asked
where is the new Don and she says neuron
the new Don and then she looked at this
whatever expression was not very nice so
so their scores had gone up from zero to
thirty percent which is an educational
impossibility under the circumstances
but thirty percent is not a pass so I I
found that they had a friend a local
accountant a young girl and they played
football with her I asked that girl
would you teach them enough
biotechnology to pass and she said how
would I do that I don't know the subject
I said no use the method of the
grandmother she said what's that I said
well what you've got to do is stand
behind them and admire them all the time
just say to them that's cool that's
fantastic what is that can you do that
again can you show me some more she did
that for two months the scores went up
to fifty which is what the posh schools
of New Delhi with a trained
biotechnology teacher were getting so I
came back to Newcastle with these
results and decided that there was
something happening here that definitely
was getting very serious
so having experimented in all sorts of
remote places I came to the most remote
place that I could think of
across the river tyne 5,000 miles from
the reef is the little town of gate set
in gate said I took 32 children and I
started to fine-tune the method I made
them into groups of four I said you make
your own groups of four each group of
four can use one computer and not four
computers remember from the hole in the
wall you can exchange groups you can
walk across to another group if you
don't like your group etc you can go to
another group peer over their shoulders
see what they're doing come back to your
own group and claim it as your own work
and I explained to them that you know a
lot of scientific research is done using
that method
the children enthusiastically got after
me so now what do you want us to do as I
gave them six GCSE questions the first
group the best one solved everything in
20 minutes
the worst in 45 they used everything
that the new news groups Google
Wikipedia Ask Jeeves etc the teacher
said is this deep learning I said well
let's try it I'll come back after two
months
we'll give them a paper test no
computers no talking to each other etc
the average score when I'd done it with
the computers and the group's was 76%
when I did the experiment when I did the
test after two months the score was 76%
there was photographic recall inside the
children I suspect because they're
discussing with each other a single
child in front of a single computer will
not do that I have further results which
are almost unbelievable of scores which
go up with time because their teachers
say that after the session is over the
children continue to Google further here
in Britain I put out a call for British
grandmothers after my coop um experiment
well there's you know with the very
vigorous people British grandmothers 200
of them volunteered immediately the the
deal was that they would give me one
hour of broadband time sitting at their
homes one day in a week so they did that
and over the last two years over 600
hours of instruction has happened over
Skype using what my students call the
granny cloud granny cloud sits over
there I can beam them to whichever
school I want to
you can't gate said a
ten-year-old girl gets into the heart of
Hinduism in 15 minutes
you know stuff which i don't know
anything about to children watch a TED
talk they wanted to be footballers
before after watching a TED talks he
wants to become Leonardo da Vinci it's
it's pretty simple stuff this is what
I'm building now they're called Souls
self-organized learning environments the
furniture is designed so that children
can sit in front of big powerful screens
big broadband connections but in groups
if they want they can call the granny
cloud this is the soul in Newcastle the
mediator is from Pune India so how far
can we go one last little bit and I'll
stop I went to Turin in May I sent all
the teachers away from a group of 10
year old students I speak only English
they speak on the Italian so we had no
way to communicate I started writing
English questions on the blackboard the
children looked at it and said what I
said well do it they typed it into
Google translated it into Italian went
back into Italian Google fifteen minutes
later
next question
where is Calcutta this one they took
only 10 minutes I tried a really hard
one then who was Pythagoras and what did
he do
there was silence for a while then they
said you've spelt it wrong it's Pete
Agora and then in 20 minutes the right
angle triangles began to appear on the
screens it was sent shivers up my spine
these are 10 year olds
so you know what's happened I think
we've just stumbled across a
self-organizing system a self-organizing
system is one where a structure appears
without explicit intervention from the
outside self-organizing systems also
always show emergence which is that the
system starts to do things which it was
never designed for which is why you
react the way you do because it looks
impossible I think I can make a guess
now education is a self-organizing
system where learning is an emergent
phenomenon it will take a few years to
prove it experimentally but I'm going to
try but in the meanwhile there is a
method available 1 billion children we
need 100 million mediators there are
many more than that on the planet 10
million souls 180 billion dollars and 10
years we could change everything thanks
you
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