Remote Mentoring
Here is an interesting story of how seating thousands of miles apart, one can bring hopes and prosperity in the life of others just by spending some time and offering few words of encouragement and inspiration.
Five years ago, an Indian schoolboy struck up an unlikely friendship with a retired teacher in London – and with her help, he is now studying medicine. Even though they live thousands of miles apart and have never met, they can’t imagine life without each other.
When Shahrukh Khan was 13, his school in Hyderabad got a new computer lab which changed his life. He and his fellow students would get together in a small room to explore the internet; they also had a chance to chat with retired teachers in other countries.
It was part of a new scheme that linked students with foreign mentors – children could ask any question they have and the mentors on the other side of the world would offer encouragement and advice on where to find the answers to their questions.
“It was interesting to talk with foreigners and learn something,” says Khan. “I used to sit there, watch everything and talk with people, like Liz Fewings from London.”
Fewings was 60 and had just retired from teaching. She lives in Hackney, East London and joined the project in 2009, after reading about it in a newspaper. In the beginning, Fewings would talk to a whole group of Indian students but after a while Khan was the only one taking part. “And so we developed a friendship,” she says.
They started to email each other and she began to help him with his English. “His comprehension skills were not good, so I would challenge him quite a lot – did you understand what I said? What did I mean? He knew if I write in capital letters that I’m shouting.” Khan made the most of his new friendship. His English improved in leaps and bounds.
As the years passed, Khan told Fewings that he wanted to become a doctor and planned to apply to university in the UK. Khan’s father had died when he was just six – his eldest brother supported the family and paid his school fees but could not give him advice about applying to foreign universities. Fewings did some research to find out cost and application process.
With Fewings’ help, Khan realized that studying in England would be more expensive and complicated than he had anticipated. He considered other countries and looked at universities in Ukraine, Russia, China and the Philippines. Fewings prompted him to think about cultural differences, climate and living conditions in each place. After much discussion, he settled on the Philippines where he is about to start in a medical degree.
Khan is just one among thousands of children who have benefitted from the project, which was initiated 15 years ago, by Professor Sugata Mitra. Mitra gave free access to a computer to the children of a Delhi slum and let them use it however they wished. He called this experiment the “Hole in the Wall”.
He wanted to see if the children could teach themselves to operate it without any instruction and was amazed, how quickly they gathered around the screen and worked together to pick up new concepts
Mitra observed “that children can go 10 or 12 years ahead of their time using this kind of method”. He called it self-organized learning and expanded his project. In 2008, he installed computers in 11 schools in Hyderabad, including Khan’s. Since then, he has taken his idea of self-organized learning environments (Soles) to rural parts of India too.
Last year, Mitra won a $1million prize from the organizers of the Technology Entertainment and Design (TED) conference – he is using the money to fund the next phase, which is known as the “School in the Cloud“.
The centers for self-organized learning are basic cybercafés’ for children where every computer screen is visible to everyone nearby. There is also a large monitor where they can call an “electronic mediator”, like Fewings, for help.
The students also have access to mentors who are known as Cloud Grannies – although many, like Fewings, are not actually grandmothers. The name comes from the idea that they behave like a proud grandparent – offering encouragement and guidance rather than teaching. “You need to say ‘wow that’s years ahead of your time – how on earth did you guys do that?'” says Mitra.
Having spent much of her life in the classroom, Fewings thinks self-organized learning could help children develop problem-solving skills. “There has to be a way of doing that, so children aren’t sitting in rows learning facts, [but] working collaboratively and helping each other along.”
But it isn’t just the children who benefit – Fewings now sees herself as an auntie to Khan. “To have this relationship with somebody in India is quite exciting really for me… this boy has a good heart” she says.
As for Khan, he says he never feels alone. “If I have any problem there is someone to help.”
Adapted from the article by Alison Gee : http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26356160
Sugata Mirta on TED:
http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_build_a_school_in_the_cloud?language=en
http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education?language=en
