The video about Sugata Mitra's experiment, Hole in the Wall, really enlightened me and made me think. In today's society, a lot of students like to blame the teachers when doing poorly in school and claim that they are not receiving a decent education. I feel like our society makes education seem more like an obligation rather than a chance to become knowledgeable. However, by providing something as simple as a computer to the children of India, it gave them the tool and opportunity to learn. This helped them become ambitious and started educating themselves, without a teacher. While students in America get really excited when they hear the words, "no school", the number of children using the computer in India started to increase.
Soon enough some of the children became the teacher rather than the student. With this one piece of technology, they were able to form a small community amongst themselves, or some could say, they were able to form a classroom. After looking through their website, http://www.hole-in-the-wall.com/MIE.html, I found out that they actually came up with a term for this teaching method: minimally invasive education (MIE).
What really astonished me was when I heard the story about the little girl who was able to explain a complicated science procedure regarding DNA. These children didn't even know how to read, write, or speak in English but somehow were able to teach themselves how to do so. This just goes to show you that when you put your mind to it, you really can accomplish anything. The video taught me that one really can't learn anything unless they have the passion and determination to do so. Students can't learn anything unless they want to be taught.
ReplyDelete"Students can't learn anything unless they want to be taught.” I completely agree with this thought! I was always a "good student" in school, I did my homework, passed the test and gave the teachers what they wanted, but as I look back at my education I wouldn't say that I enjoyed it at all. I also could only tell you probably 1/3 of what I was taught, and most of that knowledge is on things that were interesting to me. An obligation was really all school was for me and most of the people I know. I think that this could of been changed if I was given the option to learn about things I wanted to instead of the core curriculum or what I needed to for the test.