Hole-in-the-wall featured on "Daily Planet goes to India"

I was watching this program "Daily Planet goes to India" on the Discovery channel. There was a clip on the activities done in Delhi by Hole-in-the-wall - a site I had mentioned about 3-4 days back on this blog. An alumni from my B School had forwarded the link to the community.

They showed how they simply installed 3 computers in the wall at a location where education is not easy to obtain for the children. These children were to learn to use these computers on their own w/o any supervision. One of the ladies working for the cause talked about how one of the children referred to the mouse pointer as a "Sui" - that is a Hindi word which in English means a Needle. When asked what the needle does the boy replied that he has to move it to make things happen. Another child termed the folders as "Cupboards". He explained that when it's opened things come out. It was fascinating to see how these children use their own vocabulary to understand things.

The founder Dr. Sugata Mitra also talked about the pattern of learning that they observed. The bullies would crowd around first edging out the smaller quiter children, but they wouldnt be able to figure out things, then a small quiet child would come and do something, the bullies would step back and actually ask the child how he/she did it.

We need many such holes in the wall to crash the wall that stands between education and many of India's under-privileged children!