Schools As We Know Them Are Obsolete

 "Schools as we know them are obsolete". This is the quote that stuck out to me the most while watching Sugata Mitra's TED Talk, Build a School in the Cloud. At first glance, this quote seems alarming and impossible. Schools are incredibly necessary and vital to our world. However, after viewing the TED Talk, the statement becomes crystal clear. In our current world, full of technology, schools are obsolete. They need to change and evolve with our current society in order to stay relevant and useful for the next generation. 

Sugata Mitra performed experiments where he left computers in impoverished areas around the globe and saw if local children could figure out complex questions and concepts simply by leaving them alone with the technology. Even when the computer and information were all in English and not their native language, these children were still able to grow and learn, discovering and understanding information about complex questions. This is an extreme example of a discovery based learning approach, in which students are posed with a question and left to discover the answer for themselves. This is a trend in education that has been growing in recent years. Sugata Mitra's research reveals that the traditional model of educating students by lectures and very structured assignments is becoming obsolete. With technology at their fingertips, students can discover the same information by simply using their resources. As educators, our role in schools has shifted due to technology. We are no longer lecturers, we are facilitators. If we give students the tools to discover information themselves and structure our lessons using this inquiry based approach, we can still teach students a great deal but give them more autonomy in their learning. 

Sugata Mitra mentions a learning model names SOLE, which stands for Self-Organized Learning Environment. This model of learning is what his research led to, a model in which the students are very much the center of the learning environment and the teacher is merely facilitating and encouraging. You can learn more about how to incorporate SOLE into the classroom here. Overall, I think Sugata Mitra's TED Talk and the quote at the beginning reveal that our role in education has shifted and schools need to recognize this and rely more on children's innate ability to discover information for themselves.