Tackling Educational Constraints in Time of Limitless Growth
One fine day in 1999, Professor Mitra decided to embed a computer in a wall in Madangir, one of New Delhi's many slums. He abandoned the device and began recording what happened.
Figure 7 - Image from http://etcjournal.com/2013/03/
Children were soon fascinated by it and gathered with interest until they learnt how to use it and make the most of the teaching materials available there, on their own, by helping each other.
This was the beginning of an experiment that would place 70 self-learning stations in impoverished neighborhoods, slums and juvenile detention facilities in the Indian capital. The kiosks have also been successful outside of India. Today, there are over 100 points in Bhutan, the remote Himalayan kingdom famous for having invented the Gross National Happiness index.
"My wish is that we design the future of learning. We don't want to be spare parts for a great human computer," said the Indian professor.
Inspired by Professor Mitra, Sergio Juarez Correa, teacher at a school in dusty, sunbaked city of Matamoros, a flash point in the war on drugs in Mexico, walked into his classroom and started telling his students things were about to change for them. Unlike the kids just across the border in Brownsville, Texas, who had laptops, high– speed Internet, and tutoring, the students in Matamoros had intermittent electricity, few computers, limited Internet, and sometimes not enough to eat. So it wasn't easy for Juarez Correa to apply Mitra's theory that children could learn by having access to the web. The state paid for a technology instructor who visited each class once a week, but he didn't have much technology to demonstrate. Instead, he had a batch of posters depicting keyboards, joysticks, and 3.S-inch floppy disks. He would hold the posters up
and say things like, "This is a keyboard. You use it to type."
So Juarez Correa became a conduit for the children. During class he'll ask them what they wanted to learn, he'll go back home that night and search an answer to their query. They continued working in a model that emphasised group work, competition, creativity, and a student-led environment.
Figure 8 - Image from http://noticias.terra.com.pe/internacional/el- maestro-que-revoluciona-la-mente-de-sus- alumnos,6d1256c7d4b12410VgnCLD2000000dc6eb0aRCRD.html
One fine day, the children had to sit for Mexico's national achievement exam. The previous year, 45 percent had essentially failed the math section, and 31 percent had failed Spanish. This time only 7 percent failed math and 3.S percent failed Spanish. And while none had posted an excellent score before, 63 percent were now in that category in math. The language scores were very high. Even the lowest was well above the national average. But when it came to the math scores in Juarez Correa's class, the top was 921. So was the top score in the state: 921. As was the top score in the entire country: 921.
One of the children in his class, Paloma, received the highest math score in the country. Ten other students got math scores that placed them in the 99.99th percentile. Paloma attracted a quick burst of official and media attention in Mexico and was flown to Mexico City to appear on a popular TV show and received a variety of gifts, from a laptop to a bicycle. Juarez Correa got almost no recognition, despite the fact that nearly half of his class had performed at a world- class level and that even the lowest performers had markedly improved.
Meanwhile, in Rio de Janeiro, a middle class teacher by the name of Rodrigo Baggio decided to start a school for poor kids to teach them both computer skills and citizenship skills. He got corporations to donate old computers, and trained his best pupils to become teachers themselves. The result was the Committee for the Oemocratisation of lnformation Technology (COl}, which has grown into a network of self-supporting schools in slums and disadvantaged communities across Brazil. Providing equipment for these schools are major digital companies including lBM. COl has attracted interest and imitation in a number of other countries. COl now runs more than 160 schools in Brazil and neighboring countries to teach computer skills to disadvantaged children.
These are inspirational stories that portray one of the many ways available to us today to give children in poorer regions a chance to rid themselves of the disadvantages they have unfairly been placed upon them.
However, Joshua Oavis explains in W ired, that these examples-involving only thousands of students-are the exceptions to the rule. The educational system, designed almost two centuries ago to meet the needs of the industrial age, is slow to recognise or adopt successful innovation. A major generalized overhaul of the educational system worldwide is needed (more so in destitute regions}, to be able to deal with the technological exponential growth we are about to face. e therwise, millions of children will be left behind.
And so will millions of Small Business owners in emergent nations and disadvantaged regions.