Why don't school lessons spread in the same wildfire way that Mitra observed in his experiments on minimally invasive education? It is not hard to think of many answers to this question. Here are a few that pop to mind:
• Children in school are not free to pursue their own, self-chosen interests, and this mutes their enthusiasm.
• Children in school are constantly evaluated. The concern for evaluation and pleasing the teacher--or, for some children, a rebellious reaction against such evaluation--overrides and subverts the possibility of developing genuine interest in the assigned tasks.
• Children in school are often shown one and only one way to solve a problem and are told that other ways are incorrect, so the excitement of discovering new ways is prevented.
• Segregation of children by age in schools prevents the age mixing and diversity that seem to be key to children's natural ways of learning. Mitra observed that the mix of abilities and interests in the age-mixed groups that gathered around the outdoor computers ensured that different functions of the computer were tried out and played with by different children and that a wide variety of discoveries were made, which could then spread from child to child.
Learning is so easy, and such fun, when it occurs naturally. We make learning hard and dreary in our classrooms by depriving children of the opportunity to use their natural ways of learning and by replacing them with coercion. If we would concentrate on providing children with environments and tools that optimize their abilities to teach themselves, in age-mixed groups, and if we would stop trying to control children's learning, life would be more fun for all of us and the culture would flourish even more than it does now.
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Some references describing Mitra's work:
For a video of Mitra talking about his research into minimally invasive education, click here.
To read about the most recent developments in Mitra's program of minimally invasive education, click here.
Published articles by Mitra and his colleagues:
Dangwal, R., Jha, S., & Kapur, P. (2006). Impact of minimally invasive education on children: An Indian perspective. British Journal of Educational Technology, 37, 295-298.
Inamdar, P. (2004). Computer skills development by children using ‘hole in the wall' facilities in rural India. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 20, 337-350.
Mitra, S. (2003). Minimally invasive education: A progress report on the "hole-in-the-wall" experiments. British Journal of Educational Technology, 34, 267-371.
Mitra, S. (2004). Hole in the Wall. Dataquest (India), Sept. 23 issue. URL http://dqindia.ciol.commakesections.asp/04092301.asp.
Mitra, S. (2005). Self organizing systems for mass computer literacy: Findings from the ‘hole in the wall' experiments. International Journal of Development Issues, 4, 71-81.
Mitra, S., & Rana, V. (2001). Children and the internet: Experiments with minimally invasive education in India. British Journal of Educational Technology, 32, 221-232.
