The Hole in the Wall & Its Implications for Future Children

Sugata Mitra's TED Talk was such a joy to listen to. His curiosity for teaching children and his ability to move forward through this experiment was phenomenal. I think the beauty of this experiment is that it affects children in poverty and shows us that all children have an outstanding ability to learn. SOLE, Mitra's program that sprung up from this experiment, is becoming widely used around the world. It's simple: the students are given technology and resources, and the teachers facilitate their learning simply by asking questions about what they are discovering. It's a beautiful, simple approach to teaching.

I was enthralled with the possibility of this "hole in the wall" experiment. What could this mean for our future children who grow up in the school system? The great magic of Mitra's not-so-planned experiment is that he was able to learn so much. AND that the children were able to learn even more than any one of us. We see not only the children's innate curiosity, but that curiosity and the ability to learn does not vary across languages, economies, social classes. The ability to learn and desire to learn is innate in all of these children. We as teachers are there now to facilitate that.

Edutopia - SOLE: Motivate Students to Teach Themselves (And Each Other)

I feel that the SOLE approach would not fare well in the United States because of the specific requirements of learners here. That is, if we relied solely on this teaching practice. I think that for a group of students who just want to learn all they can about a subject, this approach works wonders. For a group of students that are forced to learn specifics in order to pass a standardized test, I fear it would not meet our "needs." That's a sad statement to make. However, I would hope that teachers can still integrate this practice in their classroom at least to some degree. I do hope that our modern day schooling will approach this philosophy - learning is learning, no matter what you are learning about. Discovery is still discovery.

Kids Teaching Themselves: Where Do We See This in Today's Schools?