Perhaps it is the energy coming back from spring break or the sense of a new beginning, but significant energy surrounds the start of the spring term. Head of School Mike Henriques shared a recent Ted Talk he had watched, Sugata MItra's School in the Cloud that sparked tremendous discussions around what the future of education could hold.



Mitra's main point is that children learn collaboratively regardless of whether or not a teacher is present. His experiments with 'hole in the wall' computers in rural India demonstrated that young children (8-12 years old) that had never seen a computer before in their life could not only learn how to use the machine, but could learn complex content (like DNA replication) in another language without the aid of any adult or expert in the field.



What does all this mean? Mitra submits that not only do his findings demonstrate the ability of children to learn from each other, but that the future of learning in Self Organized Learning Environments (SOLEs) needs only three major characteristics: broadband, collaboration, and encouragement.

As a faculty member at an educational institution that has been in existence since 1848 and has undergone numerous iterations of how it educates its students, Mitra's thoughts are exciting, while at the same time make me think about how Proctor must continue to evolve its educational model in the future.

Mitra's SOLEs have been largely modeled with younger children, but we cannot argue with the results: motivated, engaged students who are learning content well beyond their years.



The logical transition, then, is to consider how this type of model could be used at the secondary school level. At Proctor, we acknowledge, as Mitra argues, that the Victorian model of education where students learn content and skills that are then directly transferrable to a specific job is obsolete. Instead, our goal is to prepare students as independent thinkers who are able to problem solve in diverse environments because of their ability to interact in collaborative learning environments.



Current trends in online learning, MOOCs, and open courseware clearly show that this type of learning is not only popular, but incredibly effective as students are able to explore far more content than otherwise offered at a specific school. For Proctor, a school that has prided itself on breadth of programming, this may appear to create a dilemma--will our educational model of diverse course offerings become just as obsolete as the traditional public school model appears to be now?



Or can we adapt and use the expertise of Proctor's alumni, parents, and friends to create internal open course experiences that capitalizes on the expertise of those connected to Proctor without sacrificing the relational components of learning that we know are essential to our students' experience in the classroom?



It seems that the one component of Mitra's model that is weakest is the notion of "encouragement". His idea of using hired individuals to 'encourage' SOLEs may work, but how much deeper could the learning be if the teacher was truly a guide that posed the big questions and offered encouragement along the way. What if that new definition of teacher also served as a student's dorm parent and coach? Would the learning that takes place with that type of relationship be even more effective than the learning that takes place when an unknown individual is encouraging students?



Certain Project Period experiences and academic classes have started to follow this type of model on a smaller scale. Over the past few years, Project Periods focused on entrepreneurship have connected current students to alums, parents and friends of Proctor.

Liz Blodgett-Smith '81, P'13 led one of these Project Period groups this year, exposing her group of students to her own business as well as other investors, entrepreneurs and start-up companies to give students a first hand experience that no faculty member at Proctor could directly share with his or her class. The Project Period leaders served as a guide, not as the expert, and the learning that took place was significant.



Economics students this spring will have a similar experience as two alums from the mid-90s will share their experience in entrepreneurship as students work to develop their own business plans as a final project.



Sugata Mitra offers some tremendous insights into the future of learning and while his notion of a "School in the Cloud" will most certainly redefine how students around the world access information and learn, we, at Proctor, must think about how this model can be used most effectively given our position as a school that graduates incredibly independent minded individuals. This model of education is closer than we think and we need to be sure we are ready to adapt!