1. What is the purpose of children’s education?
2. Who is mainly responsible for a child’s academic success - the parents or the teachers?
3. How did the pandemic affect the ability to learn for a) yourself b) your family c) your country's education system? Were there any benefits that came from the changes made?
4. Do educators in your country express the desire to 'get back to normal'? What is normal, according to you?
5. Are you happy with the standards that your education system provides? Are they a good indicator of what young people can do? Could/should there be an alternative to sitting exams and testing students' memories?
6. How do you best learn?
Read the blogpost here from Sugata Mitra (The film 'Slumdog Millionaire' used his work as an inspiration):
7. What do you think about his views on using the internet as an educator, and assessment rather than exams? Can knowledge available on the internet replace in-class teaching?
8. Should Google be allowed during examinations? Should students be excused memorising dates/equations/theorems when they can be easily found with a search engine?
9. Can having an internet connection and a mobile device replace going to a bricks-and-mortar school?
10. Which statement do you agree with most?
a) How much students learn depends on how much background knowledge they have; that is why teaching facts is so necessary.
b) Thinking and reasoning processes are more important than specific curriculum content.
11. What do you think of his idea that there is no 'normal' to go back to? Should we favour digital learning more than we are now?
12. Have you ever studied for a PhD? What was it in? Did you defend your thesis at a 'viva voce'? How did you prepare for it? Was it an enjoyable experience?
13. Do you think that PhD-style vivas could be used as a type of assessment for younger students?
Read article here: PhD Divas Reading 2
14. Do you agree with Sugata when he says "We need to measure the three general topics in today's world: comprehension, communication and computing skills"? If you don't, what advice would you give to a young person regarding useful subjects to study?
13. What kind of students would his approach produce, do you think? Do you think that the students would be better for it? Can you think of any drawbacks to his approach? Would favouring 'finding things out' lead to better outcomes for society in general?
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Situation
You are part of Sugata's team at NIIT University Rajasthan. You have been invited to a meeting with the UK's secretary of education, (your teacher), who is sceptical but interested in your approach. Convince him of the value of your ideas.
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Discuss quotes
"The Indian education system, like the Indian bureaucratic system, is Victorian and still in the 19th century. Our schools are still designed to produce clerks for an empire that does not exist anymore."
--- Sugata Mitra
"Go to a job interview and tell an employer that you can recite the 17 times table; they don't care. Why are we still teaching it?"
--- Sugata Mitra
"He who opens a school door, closes a prison."
--- Victor Hugo
"Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in."
--- Mary Wollstonecraft
“Intelligence plus character-that is the goal of true education.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.
Student Handout PDF: PhD Divas
Photo: August de Richelieu