A Facebook friend (Staci Baker Centini) posted this TED talk by Sugata Mitra. Sugata stated one obvious fact in that he asserts the best teachers do not want to teach where they are need most. However it was the exploration of the third world (or inner city if your in America) child's natural curiosity that led to the discovery that children want to learn and if you spark the interest the teacher and their credentials are irrelevant.
I have seen the result this experiment in my own children. I was commenting to my lovely wife that our kids are not afraid of technology. They migrate to it and understand it. When computers were first introduced into my working environment I had to attend hours of classes to figure them out. My wife says she avoids some technology because she is afraid she will break it. My kids on the other hand quickly figured out how to make them work and how to find information. I was having a discussion about the "talk" with my oldest not to long ago. He is 23. He told me that his own curiosity on the subject made the "talk" irrelevant. Books from the dictionary, to biology and a Google search gave him the information he needed.
The above example however illustrates why the teacher is still critical to the learning process. "Using the method of the grandmother" children can learn to sort out what information is accurate and appropriate to the topic and to their age.
The hypothesis he comes to at the end of the talk is very provocative:
Education is a self organising system where learning is an emergent phenomenon.....The question is: Is Sugata Mitra's hypothesis worth funding and is the innovation worth the risk?
I think it might be....
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