At Whampoa, our SOLE (Self Organised Learning Environment) experiment continues. It's an education - for us the adult volunteers, the senior high-school/ junior college volunteers, and the kids.Over the past three Saturdays, we've pretty much followed the Sugata Mitra's SOLE framework: 8-12 year olds get to choose their own groups, one laptop per four-child group to research a question, each group has a helper - the only kid in the group who's allowed to be the conduit between the group and the adults, and the adults step in only when asked/ approached.
Today's questions:
1. Why are bruises purple?
2. Could robots rule the world one day?
The second question got some really interesting answers. The kids talked, wrote stuff, and didn't seem to have a consensus. One of the girls said robots were really smart and could build / make things. And that robots could be very scary - like if they were used in wars. They decided "maybe" robots could rule the world - because they could destroy buildings and could be used as weapons.
But robots could rule the world only if humans were scared of them. "But only god can destroy the world," added one boy earnestly. The oldest kid in the group was maybe 10. And a 5-year-old sneaked in today. He was the group's illustrator. He was also the one who told us, very seriously, that the Transformers are not real. They were drawn by computers - to which a 10-year-old piped up with "CGI!"
Did the group have fun? The Robot team did.
The Bruise team got a little ... bruised because the workload ended up being lopsided and one person ended up doing most of the work. That's something we're going to have to work on.
It's a process of adjustment and tweaking. Step in too much and the groups lose their autonomy. Stand back too much and the groups wouldn't get as much out of this as they could. It's so difficult for most of us adults not to plunge in and "guide" or get involved.
Lots of other kinks to work through - but one step at a time.
I have learned one thing though. I've realised that if I were to boil down what I wish our education system could deliver to our kids - it's Confidence, Curiousity, and the ability to Collaborate. Much more useful than chasing Cars, Condos and Country Club memberships in my view.
When I was a kid, the acceptable middle class professions were Doctor, Lawyer, Engineer. The path seemed pretty clear cut. In this century however, who knows what types of jobs the future will deliver? 10 years ago, the phrase "Social Media Strategist" hardly existed. What will work look like when these 8 year olds start their professions?
This much I do know - curiousity would propel kids to ask questions, look for answers and find ever better ways of doing things; confidence would give them the self-belief to understand they have to be masters of their destinies. And they could be the smartest kids on earth, but without enough emotional intelligence to collaborate with others, the highest IQ in the world wouldn't help a bright child live up to his or her potential.
