In 1999, Professor Sugata Mitra, conducted an experiment. He and his researchers carved a “hole in the wall” that separated the NIIT premises from the adjoining slum in New Delhi. They then installed a freely accessible computer, linked to the internet. With no prior experience of computers, and without any prompting, children quickly learned to use the keyboard, operate the mouse, and use the browser. Within a few weeks, they had learnt rudimentary computer English, and could use the computer to surf the internet without any adult supervision. More importantly, kids taught other kids how to operate the computer.
In the following years they replicated the experiment in other parts of India, urban and rural, with similar results, challenging some of the key assumptions of formal education. The "Hole in the Wall" project demonstrates that, even in the absence of any direct input from a teacher, an environment that stimulates curiosity can cause learning through self-instruction and peer-shared knowledge.
In other words, given the right motivation, kids can teach themselves, and their classmates. We at Winning Teams are strong supporters of this principle, and our programme relies on the same basic premise: let kids have fun in the classroom, and they will learn naturally.
Watch Sugata Mitra show how kids teach themselves at TED talks.
