Children, the internet, and a gecko called TikTiki
Investec is a large
investment company in South Africa and they wanted me to do an education
experiment with them. It was the height of the COVID pandemic, and I was in lockdown
in Kolkata (Calcutta) in India. It turned out to be a challenge for virtual education
over the internet.
We all know that the
UN has something called ‘Sustainable Development Goals’, or SDGs as they are
called. However, while we know SDGs exist, few know what they are. Investec
wanted change that. Their plan was to have one expert and one learner for each
SDG. The expert would tutor the learner in the SDG and the sessions would be
recorded on video. This would then form a bank of videos that can be used by
people to learn about SDGs. It looked all very planned and neat. Except for
SDG4.
The 4th SDG
is about education. It says, “Ensure inclusive and
equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”.
Children worldwide would be affected by this SDG. Investec decided that
children should learn about SDG4. But how would this happen in the middle of
the pandemic?
Investec chose a triplet from London. They
were 11 years old and, obviously, born at the same time from the same mother.
And who would be the tutor? Guess what, they chose me! There would be three
sessions of about 45 minutes each, over the internet, from Calcutta to London.
Eleven year olds find it difficult to sit
still for more than a few seconds, particularly if there is a talking head of
some old geezer on a small screen in front of them. What on earth was I to do?
How would the girls understand words like inclusive, equitable, and lifelong
learning? Why would they care?
I decided that even I, the tutor, did not
understand all the words of SDG4 all that well. So, I decided I would tell them
that I did not quite understand and ask if they could explain what all this was
about, to me. I asked Investec if the girls would be allowed to use the
internet during the sessions and they nervously agreed.
The sessions took place on the 18th,
24th and 27th of May, 2021.
During the first session, after much
yawning and shuffling, the girls woke up when I asked what they would do about food
on a deserted island. After much deliberation, they decided to cook fish in
coconut milk inside a coconut. I thought this was brilliant and if anyone
served this in a London restaurant, it would cost no less than 10 pounds. They
looked happy at the thought so I asked what they would do about schooling on
the deserted island. While they thought about it, the session ended.
In the second session, I told them about a beautiful
gecko that was neither dead nor alive on my sideboard. It was a real story, so
I must have sounded a bit freaked out and the girls leapt onto their tablet and
found out everything about geckos. How did they learn all this? I asked. The
girls were only interested in geckos by this time and I requested that we return
to the deserted island. They reluctantly did and I asked them about education
where there were no schools and teachers. “Oh, OK, we just need a tablet”, they
said and lost all interest in the matter. The session ended.
In the final session, the girls wanted to
know about Calcutta. I showed them pictures of the Howrah Bridge over the Hoogly,
a boat, a hand-pulled rickshaw and a very fancy tourist bus. “There are many ways
to get from one place to another”, I said. There are many ways to learn, I said
and we discussed how birds can talk but don’t really know what they are saying.
That’s not learning, is it? The girls grinned. They were really restless, not
because they were bored, but because they had figured out SDG4.
“Everyone must go to school. If there is no
school, they can make their own school. On a deserted island we must learn how
to learn (their words!)”.
You can see the three sessions, if you have
the patience, here:
https://www.investec.com/en_za/focus/class-of-2030/sdg-4-quality-education.html