Week 27 – Year 3 – MKE: New experiments in self-teaching | Sugata Mitra

The video above is a September 2010 Ted Talk featuring Professor Sugato Mitra. He displayed great enthusiasm for giving opportunities to learn to children who faced barriers because of where they lived. He demonstrated through his ‘experiments’ that when children want to learn and are given even the smallest window of opportunity, they will learn.

Seeing the challenges faced by so many of the world’s children shined a spotlight on my own education-related blessings and privileges. I was fortunate to be raised in a family where education was valued and to have had teachers and mentors who encouraged me along the way.

Learning is a discipline, but motivation and desire are important components that can be either amplified or dimmed by our environment. In our fast-paced society where we are exposed to so many different ideas, it’s important that we also learn to discern. We need to be more than passive consumers of information and develop skills which will help us find the truths sprinkled throughout a sea of disinformation.

The flip side of learning is teaching and it is inspiring to learn of individuals like Professor Mitra who are so passionate about making learning available to every person on our planet. This is an area I wish to focus more on—to not just be a consumer of knowledge but to also devote as much or more time to share what I’ve learned with others.