This young woman is one of the top writers in the Public Speaking class. She showed up with the writing part of her skill set down cold. She was in my class to bolster her verbal presentation. As a soft spoken young woman from the Lesser Antilles, she has a quiet dignity about her, and she realized she needed to get up in front of the group and say her piece. She did well in the class and overcame her public speaking fears. Good for her.
Then came The Novel Coronavirus and we went online.
She saw the John Taylor Gatto documentary "Schools From the Heart", and the next assignment was the Sugata Mitra TED Talk: "The School in the Cloud".
What you're about to read is a type of clarity from a young mind that has not been snookered and bamboozled by Corporate Media or the Campus Industrial Complex. She makes all the connections that are there, and uses newer, better information to .... change her mind.
This is what it's like to see a young person whose BS-ometer isn't broken. She has eyes to see. There are many negatives to working in the Bad Neighborhood. This is one of the positives - one of the best.
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Sugata Mitra’s presentation on learning, education and school has changed my mind about the effectiveness of homeschooling. My mother wants to home school my little brother, but I opposed it. She doesn’t like the idea of him going to public school with ‘wild’ children. She even wanted me to go to a private school, but it was too expensive. I opposed homeschooling because I thought he needed some exposure to other children his age and learn how to interact with people. “Schools as we them are obsolete…It’s just that we don’t need it anymore. It’s outdated”. As he explained that the teaching methods used are from the times of the British Empire, I began to understand why school has become outdated.
Mitra’s experiment with the children in the slums next to his office was very enlightening. It’s amazing that the children learned how to browse the internet within 8 hours, having no prior knowledge of computers. When he tried the experiment again with different children in a remote village, the children learned how to play games and even asked for “a faster processor and a better mouse”. Their knowledge about computers and how to use them was exceedingly high, considering it was only a few months and the computer’s language setting was English. These children taught themselves another language without the help of a teacher or English speaker. “In 9 months, a group of children left alone with a computer in any language will reach the same standard as an office secretary in the West”. I found this ironic because the school year is about 10 months and I have been learning Spanish since 7th grade, yet I’m not even close to fluent. If I could become more fluent at home, then why go to school? I realized that my brother learns on his own all the time, just from watching tv. He has a broad vocabulary for a 3 year old, he can count to 20 then count by tens to 100, do basic addition and subtraction and recognizes things by color and shape. Leaving him alone with the proper learning material helped him to explore different things, find what he likes and learn in new ways.
An eight-year-old and twelve-year olds who speaks Tamil learning the biotechnology of DNA replication in English does sound far-fetched but not impossible. Two months is a short period of time to understand the basics of such a complex subject, especially when it is in a foreign language. These children scored a 30% on the test but in my opinion, that’s a high score. When I was eight years old, I was in 4th grade. I learned about Social Studies (geography), subject/verb agreements and Math. At that time, I didn’t like science in the slightest, so learning about DNA replication would’ve been a struggle for me. Mitra explains that tests were created as a method of a survival test. “Punishment and examinations are seen as threats”. Tests can be worrisome, but I hadn’t realized that our brains register them as threats. It explains why my brain sometimes shuts down on particularly important tests when I know the material. As Mitra emphasized, those methods were effective for ancient times of war. So, I’m not sure how that type of survival is going help me in present day life. “If you allow the education process to self-organization then learning emerges”. This reinforces Gatto’s reasoning for allowing his students to go on field trips every Friday because Mitra is basically saying that schools are made to teach children in one manner only, discouraging them from thinking for themselves and hindering creative thinking. Whereas the children who are able to freely teach themselves are open to learning and new ideas. Mitra suggested that creative ways of teaching uninteresting topics is more effective than simply stating the main idea and I agree because for me, Math is subject that I like based on who’s teaching it. Some teachers explain the topic once or twice in a boring, complicated manner and expects everyone to understand. Other teachers give scenarios and ‘real-life’ examples to make it more interesting and relatable.
Mitra’s Self Organized Learning Environment (SOLE) for educating children, sounds like an environment where their soul is being nourished and that they’ll flourish by teaching each other; especially since its based upon broadband, collaboration, and encouragement. His wish to build the “School in the Cloud” is not only a simple way to educate children across the world, but also a way to secure a future for many children. As the saying goes, “Knowledge is power”, so these children will be given the power to gain a career in anything they want.
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This was my response:
This is one of the best, if not the best, bit of writing you've done. As you're a skilled verbal tactician, that's saying a lot. I'm glad the video reached you. I saw it 10 years ago and never forgot it. You, your little brother, all of us have so much potential. I remember thinking how strange it was that after seeing this video that school was stifling potential. It was eye opening and wildly ironic. Fantastic work.
This was my response:
This is one of the best, if not the best, bit of writing you've done. As you're a skilled verbal tactician, that's saying a lot. I'm glad the video reached you. I saw it 10 years ago and never forgot it. You, your little brother, all of us have so much potential. I remember thinking how strange it was that after seeing this video that school was stifling potential. It was eye opening and wildly ironic. Fantastic work.
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