On Sunday 31 Oct 2010 9:25:30 am Caryl Bigenho wrote: > Actually, Mitra's "Grannies" may not be actual grand parents and they do > have a curriculum. True. A Grannie need not necessarily be a grand parent of the learner but a curriculum-driven learning is very limiting, esp. in India with its extreme social diversity. Sugata's high tech props distracts us from seeing the facilitative aspects found in the environment. "Grannies" do three things that facilitates the learning process. Firstly, they are there during learning[1], Secondly, when a child completes a task, they celebrate the culmination of the process regardless of the economic value of the outcome. Thirdly, they guide the child to select the next process that is *meaningful* to both the child and the *social context*. Such appreciation and mentoring are invaluable in helping children learn faster and better.
A centrally planned curriculum applies a linear model of learning over a large number of children in different social contexts. It assumes that there is only one way for the next level. In practice, a child is faced with lots of choices on what to pursue next. Notice the slip in TED teaser's last statement - "results that could revolutionize how we think about teaching". We have a hard time treating education as a learning process. [1] In Sikshana, our school intervention project, the physical presence of an friendly adult in the classroom turned out to be the most important motivator for learners. One such "Grannie" volunteer was a young village girl in her twenties who was so impressed with this transformation that she joined our project and is now replicating the model across a cluster of 15 schools. Subbu _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) [email protected] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
