Turning Kids from India's Slums into Autodidacts • Hacker News Board

Re: Turning Kids from India's Slums into Autodidacts

#11

Post by tomjen3 » Sat, Dec 04, 2010, 11:10 AM UTC

ajays wrote: post #7

FTA: "In 2006, Dr. Mitra moved to England, became a professor of educational technology at Newcastle University,. . . " This saddened me. Now, don't get me wrong: he's free to move whereever he feels like; I'm not upset at him. But it would nice if the smartest people in developing countries didn't move to cushy western universities/think-tanks, and stayed where they grew up to enrich everyone around them.

Why should he stay behind? What does he owe to the people of the state of India? If already gave them far more than they would get from most of the poor people.

Re: Turning Kids from India's Slums into Autodidacts

#12

Post by JonnieCache » Sat, Dec 04, 2010, 11:54 AM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #9

ajays wrote: post #7

FTA: "In 2006, Dr. Mitra moved to England, became a professor of educational technology at Newcastle University,. . . " This saddened me. Now, don't get me wrong: he's free to move whereever he feels like; I'm not upset at him. But it would nice if the smartest people in developing countries didn't move to cushy western universities/think-tanks, and stayed where they grew up to enrich everyone around them.

People climb up the ladder because they want to get out of where they are. It's not very often that someone climbs out and elects to go back down to help others. It also doesn't make sense to stay. If you're an autodidact, you almost certainly really enjoy learning. Where better to do that than a University/think tank?

What better way to learn through osmosis than immersing yourself in a foreign (in terms of familiarity not nationality) cultural environment? Then youre learning every second of every day, if youre trying to or not.

Re: Turning Kids from India's Slums into Autodidacts

#13

Post by shareme » Sat, Dec 04, 2010, 12:17 PM UTC

ajays wrote: post #7

FTA: "In 2006, Dr. Mitra moved to England, became a professor of educational technology at Newcastle University,. . . " This saddened me. Now, don't get me wrong: he's free to move whereever he feels like; I'm not upset at him. But it would nice if the smartest people in developing countries didn't move to cushy western universities/think-tanks, and stayed where they grew up to enrich everyone around them.

It saddened me as well,

..the environment he moved form was the set of tools that provided the ways to find the solution in that if you constrict free money and other overwhelming free resources you get someone hungry to make changes..

Re: Turning Kids from India's Slums into Autodidacts

#14

Post by sandGorgon » Sat, Dec 04, 2010, 12:28 PM UTC

Somehow it reminds me of Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age).

The Primer is intended to intellectually steer its reader toward a more interesting life, and grow up to be an effective member of society. The Primer also reacts to its owners' environment and teaches them what they need to know to survive and grow.

Re: Turning Kids from India's Slums into Autodidacts

#15

Post by jdietrich » Sat, Dec 04, 2010, 1:28 PM UTC

I met Dr Mitra a couple of years ago, in relation to the first Hole in the Wall experiments.

What struck me at the time was that he seemed to be quite mad. He seemed effervescent with novelty, full of grand and strange ideas about the future of education. At the time, he was working on a 'robot teacher' platform based around a radio-controlled model, a webcam and an IP control interface. He seemed quite confident that the next big thing in his work would be some sort of robotic telepresence, capable of moving around the classroom and performing simple tasks to completely supplant the need for a local teacher. The 'granny cloud' is the product of a long succession of very odd experiments.

It got me thinking about the so-called 'Nobel syndrome' - the tendency for newly appointed Nobel laureates to make controversial statements about fields unrelated to their own. Perhaps a certain detachment from reality is necessary to make real progress. Perhaps academia needs to be an ivory tower, perhaps it's for the best that scientists often have little sense of the practical applications of their work. Thinking about my own work, I'm considering instituting my own Googleesque 20% time and allocating a specific part of my working hours to a project that I believe has no commercial relevance whatsoever.

Re: Turning Kids from India's Slums into Autodidacts

#16

Post by deepu_256 » Sat, Dec 04, 2010, 4:19 PM UTC

tomjen3 wrote: post #11

ajays wrote: post #7

FTA: "In 2006, Dr. Mitra moved to England, became a professor of educational technology at Newcastle University,. . . " This saddened me. Now, don't get me wrong: he's free to move whereever he feels like; I'm not upset at him. But it would nice if the smartest people in developing countries didn't move to cushy western universities/think-tanks, and stayed where they grew up to enrich everyone around them.

Why should he stay behind? What does he owe to the people of the state of India? If already gave them far more than they would get from most of the poor people.

It is not about owing anything to the people of India. It is about owing himself the pleasure and satisfaction of making his homeland - the place where he was born and the place where he grew up - a better place.

Re: Turning Kids from India's Slums into Autodidacts

#17

Post by deepu_256 » Sat, Dec 04, 2010, 4:19 PM UTC

tomjen3 wrote: post #11

ajays wrote: post #7

FTA: "In 2006, Dr. Mitra moved to England, became a professor of educational technology at Newcastle University,. . . " This saddened me. Now, don't get me wrong: he's free to move whereever he feels like; I'm not upset at him. But it would nice if the smartest people in developing countries didn't move to cushy western universities/think-tanks, and stayed where they grew up to enrich everyone around them.

Why should he stay behind? What does he owe to the people of the state of India? If already gave them far more than they would get from most of the poor people.

It is not about owing anything to the people of India. It is about owing himself the pleasure and satisfaction of making his homeland - the place where he was born and the place where he grew up - a better place.

Re: Turning Kids from India's Slums into Autodidacts

#18

Post by bh23ha » Sat, Dec 04, 2010, 11:42 PM UTC

Some times when I think about what it would be like to be stupefyingly rich, I think about all the money super rich people have given universities. And then I think the real way to make a HUGE difference would be to start a huge self-learning thing.

It would be like a university except it would really be up to the students to learn what ever and how much ever of it they wanted, and the autodidact-versity would just provide the venue and the books and the internet connection.

I also think that any certification that comes out of this process would be there only if a student wants it. And the student would decide what level of certification they care to try and get. And much like a Ph.D. thesis defence, a committee would take an adversarial position to the student and if the student successfully defends what they've learned, they would get a shiny certificate of some kind.

Or maybe all will just hinge on a student contributing something to human knowledge by publishing a scientific paper which gets cited by someone. Only if your paper got cited do get the right to call yourself a... something what ever.

Something like that.

Re: Turning Kids from India's Slums into Autodidacts

#19

Post by tomjen3 » Sat, Dec 04, 2010, 11:43 PM UTC

deepu_256 wrote: post #16

tomjen3 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should he stay behind? What does he owe to the people of the state of India? If already gave them far more than they would get from most of the poor people.

It is not about owing anything to the people of India. It is about owing himself the pleasure and satisfaction of making his homeland - the place where he was born and the place where he grew up - a better place.

He grew up on Earth. He is making it a better place. Why settle with just improving India? Why not the world.

Re: Turning Kids from India's Slums into Autodidacts

#20

Post by ajays » Sun, Dec 05, 2010, 4:43 AM UTC

tomjen3 wrote: post #19

deepu_256 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not about owing anything to the people of India. It is about owing himself the pleasure and satisfaction of making his homeland - the place where he was born and the place where he grew up - a better place.

He grew up on Earth. He is making it a better place. Why settle with just improving India? Why not the world.

Simple: because India is a developing country? It needs all the help it can get?