Empowering children - Professor Sugata Mitra and the future of Learning

"...groups of children can teach themselves almost anything"

I came across this sentence, and this video, a couple of weeks ago. And once again I was impressed by what children can do together, self-instructing themselves with no need of a teacher.
I can't wait to read Sugata Mitra's new book Beyond the Hole in the Wall: Discover the Power of Self-Organized Learning.
Meantime, I'm as usual questioning my role as a teacher.



This man puzzles me.
I'm amazed at what he's doing. I think he's one of those people who really made the difference. And I'd like to make the difference as well in my everyday life (at almost 40, I don't want to change the world anymore, but I still want to do my part to improve it). But how can I, if my pupils would be better off without me?

"My work with self organised learning by children shows that groups of children can learn to use computers and the Internet to answer almost any question. This happens everywhere and is independent of what language they speak, where they live and how rich or poor they are. All they need is free access and the liberty to work in unsupervised groups."

It is the "unsupervised" part that scares me. Now, appearently it's official: they would be happier and more productive without me. Ok, I'm not taking it personally - let's say without us. Not much better anyway, since it means without us teachers.

But let's have a look at Sugata Mitra's inspiring TED talk of 2010:



I love this talk, almost every sentence he says should be quoted. And thinking about it, I can see there's hope for teachers: we're not bound to become an old-fashioned, useless item after all.
First of all, I was impressed by the fact there are no teachers where they are needed most - which leads in time to a worsening of the situation, a greater need of teachers, and a greater opposition of teachers to go there. There's appearently no way out. True, computers can help - of course, better no teacher than a teacher who doesn't want to be where he is. But maybe we can start by learning to love our job again?
Which is no mission, but profession: and since we are professionals, it's our duty to perform well in our job. This doesn't mean we have to leave everything behind and go to some far away place where we think we are needed (that's a religious mission, so not our field), but to understand what's needed of us where we are.
We have to say farewell to the comfortable safe routine of traditional classroom teaching and be more daring: exploit the web, computer, collaboration opportunities. Once again, we have to learn how to be new teachers.
And just like children, we'll have to self-instruct ourselves. Sugata Mitra shows us the other side of the coin, but I believe teachers can self-instruct themselves. Why not? We can self-teach. We are Lifelong Learning Teachers, aren't we?

Among the many things I'm learning out of Professor Mitra's experiments, there's the importance of empowering children. I'm not supposed to fill them up, like empty bottles: learning is their process, and they'll learn only if they want to.

Because in the end, "children will learn to do what they want to learn to do."

Sugata Mitra shows how kids teach themselves

Thank you Elena :)

eTwinning and professional development

“Make it as free as you can.”
This sentence was one of the turning points in my growth as a teacher. With these words Professor Sugata Mitra ended his speech at the eTwinning Conference 2008 in Bucharest. After this speech I actually was a different teacher – I had a different perception of myself in my job, of what I was supposed to do, and how.

Through Professor Mitra’s words, I realized the link between social inclusion, education, and remoteness. He was talking about Indian slums, and his famous “Hole in the wall” experiments, proving that children in groups could self-instruct themselves via the internet. Soon I realized he could as well be talking about students anywhere in the world. A child doesn’t have to be born in a slum to experience remoteness.

In the exciting environment of the Conference, with enthusiastic teachers, awards, experts, futuristic ICT projects, Professor Mitra suddenly shifted the light from “teacher” to “pupil”. He introduced us to a situation where a teacher was barely needed: children, left alone with a computer, could learn by themselves, via a self organizing learning environment. I have a vivid memory of the audience being shocked. Is the internet a “better” teacher? Is the teacher useless? Or do we have to think of a different role for the teacher?

When I say I’m different since then, it doesn’t mean I do anything new. I just try to do it better.
I’m striving to change the pupils’ perception of who I am as a teacher – I’m accompanying them in their learning, not leading them. My eTwinning projects are flexible, no musts, no set pathways: our goals are fixed, but students are free to proceed at their pace and explore alternative ways. An already arranged project, where students are actors in a predetermined script, may give you a sense of success, but it’s fake, and above all boring. You don’t need an award to prove you succeeded in your job: sometimes the smallest steps, that won’t earn your project any prize, will be the most rewarding for your students. Now I run the risk of meeting the new and unexpected in my job. I work with my students, not have them work. And I just make it as free as I can.


Laura Maffei
Voices of eTwinning