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 4^th 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 18^th, 24^th and 27^th 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