Sergio Juárez Correa, a school teacher at José Urbina López primary school in Mexico is believed to have helped shape “the next Steve Jobs”.
The primary school sits next to a dump across the US border in Matamoros, Mexico serving students of the dusty, sunbaked city with a population of 489,000 and a flash point in a war on drugs. Shoot-outs are the norm in the city and it’s not uncommon for locals to find bodies scattered in the street in the morning.
Juárez Correa worked his way through the government-mandated curriculum for several years but found it to be both boring for him and the students. He took matters into his own hands by reading books and searching for enticing ideas online. Correa stumbled on a video describing the work of Sugata Mitra, a professor of educational technology at Newcastle University, UK. In the late 1990s and throughout the 2000s, Mitra conducted experiments in which he gave children in India access to computers. Without any instruction, they were able to teach themselves a surprising variety of things, from DNA replication to English.
Mitra‘s concept of minimally invasive education draws upon students own curiosity and potential for self-learning for finding answers to complex problems.
A key feature of Mitra’s experiment involved giving access to computers to surf the web which was nearly impossible for Juárez Correa’s students.
Matamoros, a place plagued by violence and drug abuse, has a lack of basic facilities and security in the school, to the point of it being dubbed 'a place of punishment.'
However for 12-year-old Paloma Noyola Bueno, it was a bright spot to learn and look outside a life in the dumps.
Juárez Correa carried out experiments in class using his understanding of popular modes of alternative education. He was amazed to see Paloma’s potential during those. She almost always knew the right answer instantly, even to the most difficult of questions. At times, she even explained things to others at her table.
Using these techniques, Juárez Correa observed a marked raise in his students scores in Spanish and math.
The young girl, who lost her father to lung cancer last year, stunned many by scoring the highest math score in the country, in the ENLACE exam. She was recently sent to Mexico City for a mental math competition. She has attracted massive media attention globally since she was labeled 'the next Steve Jobs' by the Wired magazine.
She was also taken to Mexico City for a popular TV show and received a range of presents for her achievement. Her achievement is indeed commendable. So is the genuine effort of the teacher who surpassed all odds to make his students shine.
Together, they show that the strength of alternative education cannot be underestimated in its contribution to the future of education across the world.
Source: Wired.com, Latino.foxnews.com
Feature Image: Wired.com
Other Image: AFP pics
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