We need a pedagogy free from fear and focused on the magic of children's innate quest for information and understanding.
Sugata MitraRead
In nine 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.
Interpretation
Children can achieve remarkable skills with access to technology and guidance.
This quote by Sugata Mitra emphasizes the incredible learning potential of children when they are allowed to explore and interact with technology independently. It suggests that given the right resources and an environment that promotes self-learning, children can acquire skills comparable to professional standards in a short time frame.
In practice
In a presentation about modern education methods, this quote highlights the importance of technology in learning.
We need a pedagogy free from fear and focused on the magic of children's innate quest for information and understanding.
It's quite fashionable to say that the educational system is broken. It's not broken. It's wonderfully constructed. It's just that we don't need it anymore.
The Indian education system, like the Indian bureaucratic system, is Victorian and still in the 19th century. Our schools are still designed to produce clerks for an empire that does not exist anymore.
In nine months, a group of children left alone with a computer - in any language - would reach the same standard as an office secretary in the West.
If children have interest, then Education happens
I was inspired by the Hole in the Wall project, where a computer with an internet connection was put in a Delhi slum. When the slum was revisited after a month, the children of that slum had learned how to use the worldwide web.
The child builds his inmost self out of the deeply held impressions he receives.
When you've got African parents, you go to uni, do finance, and go into accounting. But I'm not good with systems. I dropped out in my final year of college to become a Christian poet. Then went back to do my A-levels and went to uni in Birmingham to do political science and theology. I lasted 12 weeks.
Above all, though, children are linked to adults by the simple fact that they are in process of turning into them. For this they may be forgiven much. Children are bound to be inferior to adults, or there is no incentive to grow up.
You don't teach morals and ethics and empathy and kindness in the schools. You teach that at home, and children learn by example.
Education is the leading human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them; and these two objects are always attainable together, and by the same means; the training which makes man happiest in themselves also makes them most serviceable to others.
I have a list of titles that I leave at the [library] desk, because they are bound to be written some day, and it's best to be ahead of the queue.
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