Sugata Mitra is an Indian-born professor of educational technology at Newcastle University in England. He recently received the TED Talk Award of 2013, which seems to me to be a wonderful achievement since the TED talks feature some of the most creative, brilliant and articulate people on the planet. Prof. Mitra is famous for his Hole in the Wall project. That was back when he worked with a computer company in India next to a slum, where the kids stood no chance of much learning. He fixed it so that some of them, playing near his office, could get access to a computer but gave them no instruction or organization or supervision. They showed amazing and very rapid learning, working just with each other, and soon had mastered internet (which they had never heard of) browsing.
Entering his name in the search window on this main TED page will bring up his many TED talks. He is worth listening to and watching for his language and presentation skills in addition to his messages.
Having repeated his Hole in the Wall project in several places and situations, he is firmly in the project tradition. This approach touches on John Dewey, the most famous educational philosopher and theorist in the last couple of centuries, on the work of William Kilpatrick and his "project" method, on the work and book "Summerhill" by A.S. Neill and on the book by Herbert Kliebard called "The Struggle for the American Curriculum (1893-1958)". It touches on the story told in the play and movie "Auntie Mame", starring Rosalind Russell. It is also the story of high school students told in the movie "A Town Torn Apart". It is basically the idea that faster and better cognitive and emotional progress is made by learners when they work together on something they care about rather than listen to a teacher and follow instructions. The two approaches, learner-centered and presentation-centered, are at the heart of American schooling debates.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
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