Sugata Mitra: Can kids teach themselves?

Translator: Laura Núñez Reviewer: Mariona Sabate-Carrove

I have a tough job to do.

Tinc una feina dura de fer.

You know, when I looked at the profile of the audience here,

Quan he vist el perfil d'aquest públic

with their connotations and design, in all its forms,

amb les seves connotacions i disseny, en totes les seves formes,

i amb tantíssima gent que treballa

and with so much and so many people working

on collaborative and networks, and so on, that I wanted to tell you,

en xarxes col·laboratives... us volia dir,

volia elaborar un argument per a l’educació primària

I wanted to build an argument for primary education

en un context molt específic.

in a very specific context.

In order to do that in 20 minutes, I have to bring out four ideas --

Per fer-ho en 20 minuts, vull centrar-me en quatre idees:

it's like four pieces of a puzzle.

és com quatre peces d’un trencaclosques.

I si aconsegueixo fer-ho,

And if I succeed in doing that,

potser podreu tornar amb una idea

maybe you would go back with the thought

that you could build on, and perhaps help me do my work.

que podríeu aprofitar i potser ajudar-me a fer la meva feina.

The first piece of the puzzle is remoteness

La primera peça del trencaclosques és la llunyania

and the quality of education.

i la qualitat de l’educació.

Now, by remoteness, I mean two or three different kinds of things.

Per llunyania, em refereixo a dues o tres coses diferents.

Of course, remoteness in its normal sense, which means

"Llunyania" en el sentit normal significa

that as you go further and further away

que a mesura que anem més i més lluny

from an urban center, you get to remoter areas.

d'un centre urbà, arribem a zones més remotes.

What happens to education?

Què passa amb l’educació?

El segon, o un altre tipus d’allunyament és:

The second, or a different kind of remoteness

is that within the large metropolitan areas all over the world,

dins les grans àrees metropolitanes de tot el món,

you have pockets, like slums, or shantytowns, or poorer areas,

tenim llocs com barris baixos, barraques o zones més pobres,

which are socially and economically remote

allunyades socialment i econòmica

de la resta de la ciutat, i som "nosaltres" i "ells".

from the rest of the city, so it's us and them.

Què passa amb l’educació en aquest context?

What happens to education in that context?

So keep both of those ideas of remoteness.

Per tant, quedeu-vos amb ambdues idees de llunyania.

Vam fer una suposició: que les escoles d’àrees remotes

We made a guess. The guess was that schools in remote areas

do not have good enough teachers.

no tenen professors prou bons.

I si en tenen, no poden retenir-los.

If they do have, they cannot retain those teachers.

They do not have good enough infrastructure.

No tenen una infraestructura prou bona.

I si tenen infraestructura,

And if they had some infrastructure,

they have difficulty maintaining it.

tenen problemes per mantenir-la.

But I wanted to check if this is true. So what I did last year was

Jo volia comprovar si això era cert. Així, l’any passat

vam contractar un cotxe, vam buscar a Google,

we hired a car, looked up on Google,

vam trobar una ruta cap al nord de l’Índia des de Nova Delhi

found a route into northern India from New Delhi

which, you know, which did not cross any big cities

que no creués per cap gran ciutat

or any big metropolitan centers. Drove out about 300 kilometers,

ni cap gran centre metropolità. Vam recórrer uns 300 quilòmetres

and wherever we found a school, administered a set of standard tests,

i, allà on trobàvem una escola, els fèiem un conjunt de proves estàndard

and then took those test results and plotted them on a graph.

Vam agafar els resultats i els vam representar en una gràfica.

The graph was interesting, although you need to consider it carefully.

La gràfica era interessant, però cal analitzar-la amb detall.

I mean, this is a very small sample; you should not generalize from it.

Es tracta d’una mostra molt petita; no s’hauria de generalitzar.

Però era força evident, força clar,

But it was quite obvious, quite clear,

that for this particular route that I had taken,

que en aquest recorregut que havia fet,

com més remota era l'escola, pitjor eren els resultats.

the remoter the school was, the worse its results seemed to be.

That seemed a little damning,

Això podia semblar bastant concloent.

and I tried to correlate it with things like infrastructure,

i vaig intentar correlacionar-ho amb la infraestructura,

o la disponibilitat d’electricitat i aspectes similars.

or with the availability of electricity, and things like that.

To my surprise, it did not correlate.

Sorprenentment, no es correlacionava.

It did not correlate with the size of classrooms.

No es correlacionava amb la mida de les aules.

It did not correlate with the quality of the infrastructure.

No es correlacionava amb la qualitat de la infraestructura,

It did not correlate with the poverty levels. It did not correlate.

ni amb els nivells de pobresa. No es correlacionava.

But what happened was that when I administered a questionnaire

Però vaig passar un qüestionari a aquestes escoles,

to each of these schools, with one single question for the teachers -- which was,

amb una única pregunta per als professors:

"T’agradaria traslladar-te a una zona metropolitana urbana?"—

"Would you like to move to an urban, metropolitan area?" --

69 percent of them said yes. And as you can see from that,

El 69% va dir que sí. Com es pot veure a partir d’això,

they say yes just a little bit out of Delhi,

diuen "sí" aquells allunyats una mica de Delhi,

i diuen "no" en les zones residencials de Delhi

and they say no when you hit the rich suburbs of Delhi --

because, you know, those are relatively better off areas --

—perquè són zones relativament més riques—

i després, a 200 quilòmetres de Delhi, la resposta és constantment que sí.

and then from 200 kilometers out of Delhi, the answer is consistently yes.

I would imagine that a teacher who comes or walks into class

M’imagino que un professor que surt o entra en una aula,

every day thinking that, I wish I was in some other school,

cada dia, pensant: “tant de bo estigués en alguna altra escola”,

probablement tingui un gran impacte en els resultats.

probably has a deep impact on what happens to the results.

So it looked as though teacher motivation and teacher migration

Així doncs, la motivació dels professors i la migració del professorat

was a powerfully correlated thing with what was happening in primary schools,

estan relacionats amb el que passa a les escoles primàries,

i no està relacionat amb si els nens tenen prou menjar,

as opposed to whether the children have enough to eat,

and whether they are packed tightly into classrooms

i si estan apilats a les aules

and that sort of thing. It appears that way.

i aquesta mena de coses. Sembla que és així.

When you take education and technology, then I find in the literature that,

Quan agafem l’educació i la tecnologia, trobo en els estudis que

you know, things like websites, collaborative environments --

coses com pàgines web, entorns col·laboratius

you've been listening to all that in the morning --

—ho heu estat escoltant al matí—,

sempre es posa a prova primer a les millors escoles urbanes

it's always piloted first in the best schools, the best urban schools,

and, according to me, biases the result.

i, segons crec, decanten el resultat.

The literature -- one part of it, the scientific literature --

La literatura —una part d’ella, la literatura científica—

culpa constantment la tecnologia educativa de ser exagerada i de baix rendiment.

consistently blames ET as being over-hyped and under-performing.

The teachers always say, well, it's fine, but it's too expensive for what it does.

Els professors sempre diuen: “està bé, però és massa cara pel que fa”.

Perquè la prova s'ha fet en una escola on els estudiants ja estan aconseguint,

Because it's being piloted in a school where the students are already getting,

let's say, 80 percent of whatever they could do.

un 80% del que podrien fer,

S'introdueix una nova super tecnologia, i ara aconsegueixen el 83%.

You put in this new super-duper technology, and now they get 83 percent.

So the principal looks at it and says,

Llavors, el director la mira i diu:

3 percent for 300,000 dollars? Forget it.

“Un 3% per 300.000 dòlars? No val la pena”.

If you took the same technology and piloted it into one of those remote schools,

Si s’agafés la mateixa tecnologia i es posés a prova en una escola remota,

where the score was 30 percent, and, let's say, took that up to 40 percent --

on la puntuació era 30%, i arribés a 40%,

that will be a completely different thing.

seria completament diferent.

So the relative change that ET, Educational Technology, would make,

I el canvi relatiu que faria la tecnologia educativa (TE), seria

would be far greater at the bottom of the pyramid than at the top,

més gran a la part de baix de la piràmide que a la part superior,

but we seem to be doing it the other way about.

però sembla que ho estem fent a l'inrevés.

So I came to this conclusion that ET should reach

I vaig arribar a la conclusió que la TE hauria d’arribar

the underprivileged first, not the other way about.

primer als més desfavorits, no a l'inrevés.

And finally came the question of, how do you tackle teacher perception?

Finalment, es va plantejar la pregunta, com abordem la percepció del professorat?

Whenever you go to a teacher and show them some technology,

Quan a un professor li mostrem tecnologia,

the teacher's first reaction is,

la primera reacció és:

you cannot replace a teacher with a machine -- it's impossible.

“No es pot substituir un professor per una màquina. És impossible”.

No sé per què és impossible, però si, per un moment,

I don't know why it's impossible, but, even for a moment,

if you did assume that it's impossible -- I have a quotation from Sir Arthur C. Clarke,

si assumim que és impossible — hi ha una cita de Sir Arthur C. Clarke,

the science fiction writer whom I met in Colombo,

l’escriptor de ciència-ficció que vaig conèixer a Colombo,

and he said something which completely solves this problem.

i em va dir una cosa que soluciona completament aquest problema:

He said a teacher than can be replaced by a machine, should be.

"un "profe" que pot substituir-se per una màquina, ha de ser substituït."

So, you know, it puts the teacher into a tough bind, you have to think.

Així que es posa el professor en un bon embolic, fa pensar.

Anyway, so I'm proposing that an alternative primary education,

Jo proposo que una educació primària alternativa,

whatever alternative you want, is required where schools don't exist,

entenem "alternativa" com vulguem, cal on no existeixin escoles,

where schools are not good enough, where teachers are not available

on les escoles no són bones, o no hi ha professors

or where teachers are not good enough, for whatever reason.

o els professors no són bons, pel que sigui.

Si viviu en una part del món on no s’aplica res d’això,

If you happen to live in a part of the world where none of this applies,

llavors no necessiteu una educació alternativa.

then you don't need an alternative education.

So far I haven't come across such an area, except for one case. I won't name the area,

No he trobat enlloc, tret d'un cas. No diré on,

i la gent deia: “no tenim aquest problema,

but somewhere in the world people said, we don't have this problem,

perquè tenim els professors perfectes i les escoles perfectes”.

because we have perfect teachers and perfect schools.

There are such areas, but -- anyway, I'd never heard that anywhere else.

Existeixen llocs així, i mai no he sentit això enlloc més.

I'm going to talk about children and self-organization,

Parlaré sobre els nens i l'autoorganització

i un conjunt d’experiments que em van dur fins aquesta idea

and a set of experiments which sort of led to this idea

of what might an alternative education be like.

de com podria ser una educació alternativa.

They're called the hole-in-the-wall experiments.

Són experiments anomenats “forat a la paret”.

I'll have to really rush through this. They're a set of experiments.

Us explico ràpidament. Són un conjunt d’experiments.

The first one was done in New Delhi in 1999.

El primer va ser a Nova Delhi l'any 1999.

And what we did over there was pretty much simple.

I el que vam fer era bastant senzill.

Tenia una oficina en aquells dies prop d'un suburbi, una barriada urbana,

I had an office in those days which bordered a slum, an urban slum,

so there was a dividing wall between our office and the urban slum.

hi havia un mur divisori entre el despatx i la barriada urbana.

They cut a hole inside that wall --

Vam fer un forat en aquest mur

which is how it has got the name hole-in-the-wall --

—d'aquí ve el nom de “forat a la paret”—

and put a pretty powerful PC into that hole, sort of embedded into the wall

i vam col·locar un PC potent en el forat, com incrustat a la paret

so that its monitor was sticking out at the other end,

perquè el monitor quedés fora a l'altre costat,

a touchpad similarly embedded into the wall,

també un panell tàctil incrustat de manera similar a la paret,

put it on high-speed Internet, put the Internet Explorer there,

vam posar Internet d'alta velocitat, Internet Explorer,

put it on Altavista.com -- in those days -- and just left it there.

Altavista.com —en aquells dies— i el vam deixar allà.

And this is what we saw.

I això és el que vam veure.

So that was my office in IIT. Here's the hole-in-the-wall.

Així era el meu despatx a l'Institut. Aquí està el “forat a la paret”.

About eight hours later, we found this kid.

Vuit hores després, vam trobar aquest noi.

A la dreta hi ha un nen de vuit anys

To the right is this eight-year-old child who --

a la seva esquerra, una nena de sis anys, no gaire alta.

and to his left is a six-year-old girl, who is not very tall.

I ell l'ensenyava a navegar.

And what he was doing was, he was teaching her to browse.

So it sort of raised more questions than it answered.

Això ens va plantejar més preguntes de les que va contestar.

Is this real? Does the language matter,

És real? L’idioma té importància,

because he's not supposed to know English?

perquè se suposa que no sap anglès?

Will the computer last, or will they break it and steal it

L’ordinador durarà o el trencaran i el robaran?

-- and did anyone teach them?

I, algú els va ensenyar?

The last question is what everybody said, but you know,

L’última pregunta és la que va dir tothom,

I mean, they must have poked their head over the wall

deuen haver tret el cap per damunt de la paret

and asked the people in your office,

i preguntat a la gent de la oficina:

can you show me how to do it, and then somebody taught him.

“m'ensenyeu com fer-ho?”, i algú els ho ha ensenyat.

So I took the experiment out of Delhi and repeated it,

Vaig agafar l'experiència de Delhi i la vaig repetir

this time in a city called Shivpuri in the center of India,

a una ciutat anomenada Shivpuri, al centre de l'Índia,

per confirmar que ningú no havia ensenyat mai res a ningú.

where I was assured that nobody had ever taught anybody anything.

(Laughter)

(Rialles)

So it was a warm day, and the hole in the wall

Així que feia un dia càlid i el “forat a la paret”

was on that decrepit old building. This is the first kid who came there;

estava en aquell antic edifici decrèpit.

Aquest és el primer nen que hi va venir;

he later on turned out to be a 13-year-old school dropout.

vam saber que tenia 13 anys i que havia deixat l’escola.

He came there and he started to fiddle around with the touchpad.

Va arribar allà i es va posar a jugar amb el panell tàctil.

Very quickly, he noticed that when he moves his finger on the touchpad

Ràpidament va veure que quan movia el dit pel panell tàctil,

something moves on the screen --

alguna cosa es movia a la pantalla.

and later on he told me, "I have never seen a television

després em va dir: "Mai havia vist una televisió

where you can do something."

on puguis fer alguna cosa".

So he figured that out. It took him over two minutes

I ho va entendre. Va trigar uns dos minuts

to figure out that he was doing things to the television.

a entendre que feia coses a la televisió.

Mentre feia això, va fer un clic intuïtiu

And then, as he was doing that, he made an accidental click

by hitting the touchpad -- you'll see him do that.

i va tocar el panell tàctil. Ara ho veureu.

He did that, and the Internet Explorer changed page.

En fer-ho, Internet Explorer va canviar de pàgina.

Eight minutes later, he looked from his hand to the screen,

Vuit minuts després, mirava de la seva mà a la pantalla

i va anar navegant.

and he was browsing: he was going back and forth.

When that happened, he started calling all the neighborhood children,

Quan això va passar, va avisar tots els nens del barri,

like, children would come and see what's happening over here.

els nens venien a veure què passava.

And by the evening of that day, 70 children were all browsing.

Aquell vespre, fins a 70 nens navegaven per Internet.

So eight minutes and an embedded computer

Vuit minuts i un ordinador incrustat

seemed to be all that we needed there.

era tot el que necessitàvem.

So we thought that this is what was happening:

Així que vàrem pensar que això és el que passava:

that children in groups can self-instruct themselves

que els nens en grups es poden ensenyar entre ells

to use a computer and the Internet. But under what circumstances?

com utilitzar un ordinador i l’Internet. Però en quines circumstàncies?

At this time there was a -- the main question was about English.

En aquest moment, la pregunta principal era sobre l'anglès.

People said, you know, you really ought to have this in Indian languages.

La gent deia: “hauríeu de tenir-ho en idiomes indis”.

So I said, have what, shall I translate the Internet

I vaig dir: "Tenir què? He de traduir l’Internet

into some Indian language? That's not possible.

a alguna llengua índia? Impossible”.

So, it has to be the other way about.

Per tant, hi ha d’haver una altra forma.

But let's see, how do the children tackle the English language?

Però, com gestionen els nens la llengua anglesa?

I took the experiment out to northeastern India,

Vaig dur l’experiment al nord-est de l’Índia,

to a village called Madantusi,

a un poble anomenat Madantusi,

where, for some reason, there was no English teacher,

on no hi havia cap professor d’anglès,

so the children had not learned English at all.

i els nens no havien après mai l’anglès.

And I built a similar hole-in-the-wall.

I vaig construir un “forat a la paret”.

Una gran diferència dels pobles, respecte els suburbis urbans:

One big difference in the villages, as opposed to the urban slums:

there were more girls than boys who came to the kiosk.

hi havia més noies que nois que venien.

In the urban slums, the girls tend to stay away.

Als suburbis urbans, les noies no venien tant.

I left the computer there with lots of CDs -- I didn't have any Internet --

Vaig posar CDs a l’ordinador. No tenia Internet.

and came back three months later.

i vaig tornar tres mesos després.

So when I came back there, I found these two kids,

Quan vaig tornar, vaig trobar aquests dos nens,

eight- and 12-year-olds, who were playing a game on the computer.

de 8 i 12 anys, jugant a un joc a l’ordinador.

And as soon as they saw me they said,

I tan aviat em van veure em van dir:

"Necessitem un processador més ràpid i un ratolí més bo".

"We need a faster processor and a better mouse."

(Laughter)

(Rialles)

I was real surprised.

Em vaig quedar realment sorprès.

You know, how on earth did they know all this?

Però, com dimonis sabien tot això?

And they said, "Well, we've picked it up from the CDs."

I em van dir: "Bé, ho hem après dels CDs".

So I said, "But how did you understand what's going on over there?"

Vaig dir: "Però, com heu entès el que passa allà?"

So they said, "Well, you've left this machine

Van dir: "Heu deixat aquesta màquina que parla anglès,

which talks only in English, so we had to learn English."

i hem hagut d'aprendre anglès".

So then I measured, and they were using 200 English words with each other

Vaig comptar-ho, i utilitzaven 200 paraules angleses

-- mispronounced, but correct usage --

—paraules mal pronunciades, però d’ús correcte—

words like exit, stop, find, save, that kind of thing,

com ara sortir, parar, trobar, guardar, aquest tipus de coses,

no només amb l’ordinador sinó en converses del seu dia a dia.

not only to do with the computer but in their day-to-day conversations.

So, Madantusi seemed to show that language is not a barrier;

Madantusi semblava mostrar que el llenguatge no és una barrera;

in fact they may be able to teach themselves the language

de fet, es podien ensenyar la llengua ells mateixos,

if they really wanted to.

si realment volien.

Finally, I got some funding to try this experiment out

Finalment, vaig trobar finançament per provar aquest experiment

i veure si els resultats són repetibles, si es repeteixen arreu.

to see if these results are replicable, if they happen everywhere else.

India is a good place to do such an experiment in,

L’Índia és un bon lloc per fer aquests experiments,

because we have all the ethnic diversities, all the -- you know,

perquè tenim totes les diversitats ètniques

tota la diversitat genètica, totes les diversitats racials,

the genetic diversity, all the racial diversities,

and also all the socio-economic diversities.

i totes les diversitats socioeconòmiques.

So, I could actually choose samples to cover a cross section

Podria triar mostres per cobrir una mostra representativa

that would cover practically the whole world.

que abastés pràcticament tot el món.

So I did this for almost five years, and this experiment

Vaig fer això durant gairebé cinc anys, i aquest experiment

ens va portar en un camí de banda a banda de l’Índia.

really took us all the way across the length and breadth of India.

Aquest és l’Himàlaia. Al nord, molt fred.

This is the Himalayas. Up in the north, very cold.

I also had to check or invent an engineering design

També vaig haver d'inventar un disseny d’enginyeria

which would survive outdoors, and I was using regular, normal PCs,

que sobrevisqués a l’aire lliure, amb ordinadors normals i corrents,

so I needed different climates, for which India is also great,

així que necessitava diferents climes, i l'Índia és ideal,

because we have very cold, very hot, and so on.

perquè fa molt fred o molta calor...

Aquest és el desert de l'oest, prop de la frontera amb el Pakistan.

This is the desert to the west. Near the Pakistan border.

And you see here a little clip of -- one of these villages --

Aquí un petit vídeo d’un d’aquests pobles

the first thing that these children did was to find a website

el primer que van fer els nens va ser trobar una pàgina web

to teach themselves the English alphabet.

per aprendre l'abecedari en anglès.

Then to central India -- very warm, moist, fishing villages,

Després cap a l’Índia central, pobles de pesca molt càlids i humits,

where humidity is a very big killer of electronics.

on la humitat és una amenaça pels aparells electrònics.

So we had to solve all the problems we had

Vam haver de resoldre tots els problemes que teníem

without air conditioning and with very poor power,

sense aire condicionat i amb poca electricitat,

so most of the solutions that came out used little blasts of air

Moltes solucions consistien en utilitzar petites corrents d’aire

situades als llocs correctes per mantenir les màquines en marxa.

put at the right places to keep the machines running.

I want to just cut this short. We did this over and over again.

Seré breu. Això ho vam fer una i altra vegada.

This sequence is also nice. This is a small child, a six-year-old,

Aquesta seqüència també és bonica. És un nen petit, de 6 anys,

dient a la seva germana gran què ha de fer.

telling his eldest sister what to do.

I això passa molt sovint amb aquests ordinadors,

And this happens very often with these computers,

that the younger children are found teaching the older ones.

que els nens més petits ensenyen als més grans.

What did we find? We found that six- to 13-year-olds can self-instruct

Què hem descobert? Que de 6 a 13 anys s'ensenyen entre ells

in a connected environment,

en un entorn connectat,

irrespective of anything that we could measure.

sigui el que sigui allò que mesurem.

Si tenen accés a l’ordinador, aprenen tots sols, i la intel·ligència.

So if they have access to the computer, they will teach themselves, including intelligence.

No vaig trobar cap correlació amb res, però havia de ser en grups.

I couldn't find a single correlation with anything, but it had to be in groups.

And that may be of great, you know, interest to this group,

I això pot ser d'interès per a aquest grup,

because all of you are talking about groups.

ja que tots parleu de grups.

So here was the power of what a group of children can do,

Heus aquí el poder del que pot fer un grup de nens

sense la intervenció dels adults.

if you lift the adult intervention.

Just a quick idea of the measurements.

Només una idea ràpida de les mesures.

We took standard statistical techniques, so I'm going to not talk about that.

Vam usar tècniques estadístiques estàndard, així que no en parlaré.

But we got a clean learning curve,

Però tenim una corba d’aprenentatge neta,

almost exactly the same as what you would get in a school.

gairebé exactament igual que la que obtindríem en una escola.

I'll leave it at that,

Ho deixaré aquí,

because, I mean, it sort of says it all, doesn't it?

perquè ja s’ha dit tot, no?

What could they learn to do?

Què podrien aprendre a fer?

Basic Windows functions, browsing, painting, chatting and email,

Funcions bàsiques de Windows, navegació, pintura, xat i correu electrònic,

games and educational material, music downloads, playing video.

jocs, material educatiu, baixar música, reproducció de vídeo.

In short, what all of us do.

En definitiva, el que fem tots.

And over 300 children will become computer literate

Més de 300 nens amb coneixements informàtics

and be able to do all of these things in six months with one computer.

i que poden fer totes aquestes coses en sis mesos amb un sol ordinador.

So, how do they do that?

Com ho fan?

If you calculated the actual time of access,

Si calculem el temps d’accés real,

it would work out to minutes per day,

serien uns minuts al dia,

so that's not how it's happening.

però no és així com passa.

What you have, actually, is there is one child operating the computer.

El que tenim, de fet, és que hi ha un nen que utilitza l’ordinador.

Al seu voltant, solen ser tres els nens,

And surrounding him are usually three other children,

who are advising him on what they should do.

que l'aconsellen què ha de fer.

If you test them, all four will get the same scores in whatever you ask them.

Si els posem a prova, tots ells obtindran la mateixa puntuació en tot.

Around these four are usually a group of about 16 children,

Al voltant d’aquests quatre, hi sol haver un grup d’uns 16 nens,

who are also advising, usually wrongly,

que també aconsellen, normalment de manera errònia,

about everything that's going on on the computer.

de tot el que passa a l’ordinador.

I tots ells també aprovaran un test sobre aquest tema.

And all of them also will clear a test given on that subject.

So they are learning as much by watching as they learn by doing.

Així aprenen tant observant com fent-ho.

It seems counter-intuitive to adult learning,

Sembla contraintuïtiu a l’aprenentatge dels adults,

but remember, eight-year-olds live in a society

els nens de 8 anys viuen en una societat

where most of the time they are told, don't do this,

on sovint se’ls diu: “no ho feu,

no toqueu l’ampolla de whisky”.

you know, don't touch the whiskey bottle.

So what does the eight-year-old do?

I què fa el nen de vuit anys?

He observes very carefully how a whiskey bottle should be touched.

Observa amb molta cura com s’ha de tocar una ampolla de whisky.

I si el poséssim a prova,

And if you tested him,

he would answer every question correctly on that topic.

respondria bé totes les preguntes sobre el tema.

So, they seem to be able to acquire very quickly.

Així doncs, són capaços d’aprendre molt ràpidament.

So what was the conclusion over the six years of work?

Quina va ser la conclusió després de sis anys de treball?

It was that primary education can happen on its own,

Que l’educació primària pot ocórrer per sí sola

or parts of it can happen on its own.

si més no, certes parts poden succeir soles.

It does not have to be imposed from the top downwards.

No s’ha d’imposar de dalt cap a baix.

It could perhaps be a self-organizing system, so that was

Podria ser un sistema autoorganitzador, així que aquesta

the second bit that I wanted to tell you,

era la segona cosa que volia dir-vos,

that children can self-organize and attain an educational objective.

que els nens es poden autoorganitzar i assolir un objectiu educatiu.

The third piece was on values, and again, to put it very briefly,

La tercera part era sobre els valors i, de nou, per dir-ho molt breument,

I conducted a test over 500 children spread across all over India,

vaig fer un test a 500 nens repartits per tota l’Índia

and asked them -- I gave them about 68 different

i els vaig preguntar (els vaig fer unes 68 preguntes)

values-oriented questions and simply asked them their opinions.

sobre valors i simplement els vaig demanar les seves opinions.

We got all sorts of opinions. Yes, no or I don't know.

Vàrem obtenir tot tipus d’opinions: “sí, no o no ho sé”.

I simply took those questions where I got 50 percent yeses and 50 percent noes --

Vaig seleccionar preguntes amb un 50% “sí”, i 50% “no”

so I was able to get a collection of 16 such statements.

Així vaig poder reunir 16 preguntes d'aquest tipus.

These were areas where the children were clearly confused,

Es tracta de zones on els nens estaven clarament confosos

because half said yes and half said no.

la meitat sí, la meitat no.

A typical example being, "Sometimes it is necessary to tell lies."

Un exemple típic és: "A vegades cal dir mentides".

They don't have a way to determine which way to answer this question;

No tenen una manera de determinar com respondre aquesta pregunta;

Potser ningú la té.

perhaps none of us do.

So I leave you with this third question.

Us deixo una tercera pregunta.

Can technology alter the acquisition of values?

"Pot la tecnologia alterar l'adquisició de valors?"

Finally, self-organizing systems,

Finalment, els sistemes d'autoorganització,

about which, again, I won't say too much

sobre els quals, una vegada més, no diré gaire,

because you've been hearing all about it.

perquè ho he dit ja.

Natural systems are all self-organizing:

Els sistemes naturals s’autoorganitzen:

galaxies, molecules, cells, organisms, societies --

galàxies, molècules, cèl·lules, organismes, societats

except for the debate about an intelligent designer.

—tret del debat sobre un dissenyador intel·ligent.

But at this point in time, as far as science goes,

Però en aquest punt, pel que fa a la ciència,

it's self-organization.

és l’autoorganització.

Altres exemples: els embussos de trànsit, la borsa de valors,

But other examples are traffic jams, stock market, society

and disaster recovery, terrorism and insurgency.

la recuperació dels desastres, el terrorisme i la insurgència.

And you know about the Internet-based self-organizing systems.

I sistemes d’autoorganització basats en Internet.

Heus aquí les meves quatre conclusions.

So here are my four sentences then.

Remoteness affects the quality of education.

La llunyania afecta la qualitat de l'educació.

Educational technology should be introduced into remote areas first,

La tecnologia educativa s'ha d’introduir primer en àrees remotes,

and other areas later.

i posteriorment en altres zones.

Values are acquired; doctrine and dogma are imposed --

Els valors s'adquireixen; la doctrina i el dogma s’imposen

the two opposing mechanisms.

i són dos mecanismes contraris.

And learning is most likely a self-organizing system.

És molt probable que l’aprenentatge sigui un sistema autoorganitzador.

If you put all the four together, then it gives -- according to me --

Si les ajuntem totes quatre, jo penso que

ens dona un objectiu, una visió, per a la tecnologia educativa

it gives us a goal, a vision, for educational technology.

An educational technology and pedagogy that is digital, automatic,

Una tecnologia i pedagogia educativa, digital, automàtica,

tolerant amb l'error, poc invasiva, connectada i autoorganitzada.

fault-tolerant, minimally invasive, connected and self-organized.

As educationists, we have never asked for technology; we keep borrowing it.

Com a educadors, mai no hem demanat tecnologia; la manllevem.

PowerPoint is supposed to be considered a great educational technology,

Se suposa que PowerPoint és una gran tecnologia educativa,

but it was not meant for education, it was meant for making boardroom presentations.

però no estava feta per l'educació, sinó per fer presentacions.

We borrowed it. Video conferencing. The personal computer itself.

La vam manllevar. La videoconferència. L’ordinador personal també.

I think it's time that the educationists made their own specs,

És hora que els educadors crein les seves pròpies especificacions,

and I have such a set of specs. This is a brief look at that.

i jo ho faig. Això és una breu introducció.

And such a set of specs should produce the technology

I aquestes especificacions haurien de produir la tecnologia

to address remoteness, values and violence.

per afrontar la llunyania, els valors i la violència.

So I thought I'd give it a name -- why don't we call it "outdoctrination."

Vaig pensar que li posaria un nom, per què no l'anomenem "desdoctrinament"?

Podria ser aquest un objectiu per a la tecnologia educativa en el futur?

And could this be a goal for educational technology in the future?

So I want to leave that as a thought with you.

Vull deixar-vos-ho com a reflexió.

Gràcies.

Thank you.

(Applause)

(Aplaudiments)