For those of you following TED 2013, you probably already know that the $1 million award has been given to Sugata Mitra to develop his groundbreaking plans in education.
This interests me greatly as I sincerely believe we still, by and large, look to create clones to do the tasks we did and our parents before us and their parents before them. Many of us grew up in a world where information was provided by the teacher, a textbook and perhaps a visit to the local library for the really ambitious. The mark of success was to demonstrate the ability to receive a set of facts, memorise them and then regurgitate them on demand. Do we really need to test our memory like this (apart from pub quizzes), when we can find out all the information online in seconds?
We cannot even imagine the jobs that future generations will have, so we certainly can’t equip them with the precise skills they might require. As Sir Ken Robinson said in one of his TED talks we squander the talents of our children too easily. We have also discussed before that the pass the test mentality is outmoded and we need to be providing students with the life skills to contribute to society. These plans must be a step in the right direction, although the project at the moment seems to be with very poor, rural children. Will the same process work for affluent kids that already have their own iPad?
Click on the image below to read more about the school in the clouds and how we can all participate in the creation of SOLEs (read the article to find out what a SOLE is).
