Yeah - sorry, I'm the author of this and you're right. I did mention that it's early days but there's no guarantee it will scale at all. As other commenters have noted, it's all about the teachers and the attitude and then finding smart ways to amplify their efforts - but it all comes down to the quality of teachers first and foremost. One thing I didn't mention, though, is that the current plan is to train their own - so there's a group of teaching assistants who are all actually trainee teachers with various local colleges, and if things pan out by the time they're qualified there'll be a job for them.
I'm fairly confident that this particular school will be a success. It's what happens when school #2 opens and so on.
Thanks. I read the original article, and I got the impression that there was more emphasis about teaching tech to children than working with would-be entrepreneurs to help with their businesses.
In my mind it's hard to separate the two. What's emerging is a movement that includes things like Afrimakers and takes in both ends of the scale. It's different to the way a lot of governments and businesses are approaching the problem, which is to try and start teaching people after they graduate - which is too late really (although unavoidable atm). This is very much the long term view:)
Then again, reading some of the other comments here, I think I may need to do more explaning in future articles about just what's happening in many countries now. A lot of views seem to be about 30 years out of date...
Funnily enough, my daughter is in a Montessori school too (I wrote the feature linked here). What I liked about this school's approach is that they haven't abandonded paper and pen, which are still used for most things (as commented above). The test scores aren't reported on the tablets, they're posted to a white board where they're discussed with the whole class and used as a springboard for the rest of the lesson.
I think it's hard to compare countries like South Africa and Holland. This is a very specific problem that's being addressed - the high cost of text books in an impoverished and corrupted education system. Infamously, there was an incident last year where textbooks supposed to be delivered to schools in Limpopo were found dumped in a river for political/financial reasons, for example.
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Yeah - sorry, I'm the author of this and you're right. I did mention that it's early days but there's no guarantee it will scale at all. As other commenters have noted, it's all about the teachers and the attitude and then finding smart ways to amplify their efforts - but it all comes down to the quality of teachers first and foremost. One thing I didn't mention, though, is that the current plan is to train their own - so there's a group of teaching assistants who are all actually trainee teachers with various local colleges, and if things pan out by the time they're qualified there'll be a job for them. I'm fairly confident that this particular school will be a success. It's what happens when school #2 opens and so on.
^^ Gah - managed to strip all the formatting out of that last comment some how, apologies.
Thanks. I read the original article, and I got the impression that there was more emphasis about teaching tech to children than working with would-be entrepreneurs to help with their businesses. In my mind it's hard to separate the two. What's emerging is a movement that includes things like Afrimakers and takes in both ends of the scale. It's different to the way a lot of governments and businesses are approaching the problem, which is to try and start teaching people after they graduate - which is too late really (although unavoidable atm). This is very much the long term view :)
Then again, reading some of the other comments here, I think I may need to do more explaning in future articles about just what's happening in many countries now. A lot of views seem to be about 30 years out of date...
Funnily enough, my daughter is in a Montessori school too (I wrote the feature linked here). What I liked about this school's approach is that they haven't abandonded paper and pen, which are still used for most things (as commented above). The test scores aren't reported on the tablets, they're posted to a white board where they're discussed with the whole class and used as a springboard for the rest of the lesson. I think it's hard to compare countries like South Africa and Holland. This is a very specific problem that's being addressed - the high cost of text books in an impoverished and corrupted education system. Infamously, there was an incident last year where textbooks supposed to be delivered to schools in Limpopo were found dumped in a river for political/financial reasons, for example.