11 Quotes & Sayings By Sugata Mitra

Sugata Mitra is the author of many bestselling books. He is opinion opinion leader and innovator in the field of education and development. His research and teaching interests include: creativity, cooperation, play, and social intelligence. He is a pioneer in using technology to enhance learning and has done pioneering work on: • Development of the young child (play and creativity) • Collaborative learning (peer-to-peer collaboration) • Self-regulated learning (learning on your own) • Social intelligence (creating social networks) Sugata Mitra was born in Nairobi, Kenya Read more

He attended local schools before receiving his B.Sc.AgrAgrEdu degree from the Kenya School of Agriculture in 1971. In 1976 he received his MScAgrAgrEdu degree from University College London and his PhD in Agricultural Economics from the University of Reading in 1982. He has worked for over 30 years as a Professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of Reading and currently holds honorary appointments at the University of Nottingham and the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

He was awarded an honorary doctorate by The Open University, UK in 2007. Sugata Mitra has published over 100 research papers that have been widely recognized across the world.

1
Let children wander aimlessly around ideas. Sugata Mitra
2
I'm encouraging kids to use computers at their own pace to build aspirations. Sugata Mitra
3
Teachers are not supposed to be repositories of information which they dish out. That is from an age when there were no other repositories of information, other than books or teachers, neither of which were portable. A lot of my big task is retraining these teachers. Sugata Mitra
4
Learning is the new skill. Imagination, creation and asking new questions are at its core. Sugata Mitra
5
In most schools, we measure children on what they know. By and large, they have to memorize the content of whatever test is coming up. Because measuring the results of rote learning is easy, rote prevails. What kids know is just not important in comparison with whether they can think. Sugata Mitra
6
The best schools tend to have the best teachers, not to mention parents who supervise homework, so there is less need for self-organised learning. But where a child comes from a less supportive home environment, where there are family tensions perhaps, their schoolwork can suffer. They need to be taught to think and study for themselves. Sugata Mitra
7
Schools still operate as if all knowledge is contained in books, and as if the salient points in books must be stored in each human brain - to be used when needed. The political and financial powers controlling schools decide what these salient points are. Sugata Mitra
8
We need a pedagogy free from fear and focused on the magic of children's innate quest for information and understanding. Sugata Mitra
9
Students are rewarded for memorization, not imagination or resourcefulness. Sugata Mitra
10
Education prepares to be one piece of a machine. Sugata Mitra