用“雲”建一所未來的學校
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作者：by Sugata Mitra
本文作者蘇伽特·米特拉是英國紐卡斯爾大學教育、交流和語言科學學院的一位教育技術教授。他因自己的教育實驗——“牆中洞”，而為人所熟識。他是NIIT（National Institute of Information Technology，印度國家信息技術學院）榮譽退休的首席科學家，並憑借“牆中洞”實驗項目成為2013年TED大獎的獲得者。TED是“Technology， Entertainment， Design”的縮寫，是美國一家私有非營利機構，該機構以其組織的TED演講大會而聞名，會議宗旨為“用思想的力量來改變世界”。 TED大獎設立於2005年，每年的三位獲獎者除了得到十萬美金外，還有機會在TED會議上公開闡述自己的TED願望，而TED的組織者將竭盡全力幫助其實現願望。
What is going to be the future of learning？ The kind of learning we do in schools today originated about 300 years ago， from “The British Empire”. Imagine trying to run the entire planet， without computers， without telephones， using handwritten pieces of paper， traveling by ships. But 1）the Victorians actually created a global computer made up of people. They made another machine to produce those people： the school. Schools produced people who 2）were identical to each other. They engineered a system so robust that its still with us today， continuously producing identical people for a machine that no longer exists. How is present-day schooling going to prepare children for the future？
Well， I 3）bumped into this whole thing completely by accident...
I used to teach people how to write computer programs in New Delhi. Right next to where I used to work， there was a slum with many orphaned children. We also had some rich parents with computers， who used to tell me about how gifted their children are. I suddenly figured that， How come all rich people have these extraordinarily gifted children？ What did the poor do wrong？
I soon made a hole in the boundary wall of that 4）slum， and stuck a computer inside just to see what would happen. All the children came running in. They said， “What is this？ Can we touch it？”I said， “If you wish to...” Then I went away， and eight hours later， found them browsing and teaching each other how to browse. My colleagues said， “One of your students must have showed them how to use the mouse.” So I repeated the experiment， this time 300 miles out of Delhi， in a remote village， where the chances of a passing software development engineer were very slim. So I stuck my computer in and went on my away. After a couple of months， I returned to find kids playing games on it. They said， “We want a faster processor and a better mouse.” So I said， 5）“How on Earth do you know all this？” And they said， in an irritated voice， “You’ve given us a machine that works only in English， so we had to teach ourselves English in order to use it.” That’s the first time， as a teacher， I had heard the words “teach ourselves” said so 6）casually.
I repeated the same experiment， over and over， with the same results every time. So I decided to destroy my own argument by making a ridiculous 7）hypothesis. Can children in a remote south Indian village learn the biotechnology of DNA replication， in English， from a street-side computer？ I figured the experiment would fail a few times， at which point I could go back to the lab and say， “we need teachers.”