Reflection on Sugata Mitra's 2013 Ted Talk

In this blog post I will be reflecting on Sugata Mitra's 2013 Ted Talk. Here is the video so that you can watch the video before reading my reflection.

In Mitra's Ted Talk he talks about how Britain created the school system to help build people into people that could be apart of the Bureaucratic Administrative Machine. In order to do this they must be identical to each other. They must know: good handwriting, the ability to read, and able to do multiplication, division, mathematics, and subtraction in their heads.  Today, school systems still use this same design. In Mitra's eyes the school system is making identical people for this machine that no longer exists. In his opinion the school system is obsolete. 

The jobs of the future are not invented today. We do not know the skills that they will need.  The school system is not preparing them for these future work forces because they are using the same system they have always used. I think this is very true.  Some of the jobs today were not even invented when I started school back in 2001. Therefore, it is a completely sane concept to me that the children that are entering kindergarten today will have jobs that have not even been thought about yet by the time they graduate college. This is where I think the school system is failing to help these kids. Why do kids need to be able to do math in their head if we can reach in our pockets and pull out a calculator in everyday situations? While I think these things are important, I feel we are wasting too much precious time trying to insert them into children's educations.  These children need to be better educated in the things that are actually going to help them in their future jobs. Therefore, I believe we need to be teaching them skills, such as technology integration, that are going to help them in their future careers. This would lead to less asking of the question, "When am I ever going to use this in real life?" and kids will begin to see that their education is valuable to them long after they leave the classroom. 

Mitra's decided to leave computers in places where kids that would normally not have access to computers would be able to use it. The children were able to teach each other how to use a computer despite not being exposed to one before.  I think this is important because it teaches us that these children are wired to be able to use these computers.  They are very adaptive and ready to learn how to use this technology. This curiosity can help them be interested in their learning and learn much quicker. 

Overall I felt this speaker was interesting and taught me the importance of technology in our present day students learning environment.