Advent of Google Means We Must Rethink Our Approach to Education

The educational Twitter-sphere was buzzing this week with this intriguing and intentionally provocative article from Britain's The Guardian, entitled "Advent of Google Means We Must Rethink Our Approach to Education."  As the article states, "Sugata Mitra is professor of educational technology at Newcastle University, and the winner of the $1m TED Prize 2013. He devised the Hole in the Wall experiment, where a computer was embedded in a wall in a slum in Delhi for children to use freely. He aimed to prove young people could be taught computers easily without formal training."

This brief resume - along with the article's title - reveals Mitra's interest in provoking a reevaluation of what we teach to students and how that teaching takes place.  While he is, like any good provocateur, sometimes more intent on generating a reaction than on fully explaining and supporting each of his points in depth, the fundamental questions that he poses in this article are undeniably valid.  In a world where information is immediately accessible, shouldn't we reconsider the overwhelming emphasis that the educational system has traditionally placed on the rote memorization of facts?  And, at a time when collaboration (face-to-face and virtual) is one of the defining elements of success beyond school walls, why are we obsessed with the need to prevent students from collaborating on the work they do at school?

 The answer, of course, is that we must take account of these changes in the world we are preparing our students to live in as we make decisions about what and how we teach them.  At Friends School we have adopted the Teaching and Learning Paradigm as a guide for decisions such as these.  Because the world continues to evolve with sometimes dizzying speed, we recognize that this paradigm will also need to be a work in progress.  But even the process of revising the objectives we hold for our students' skills, knowledge, and habits of mind is a powerfully reflective exercise that will keep our eyes focused on the kinds of rethinking that Dr. Mitra calls for in this article.

Enjoy!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2013/jun/15/schools-teaching-curriculum-education-google