Donald repeatedly refutes conclusions that he himself has arrived at which have almost nothing to do with the results and deductions of Mitra work (not the actual findings based on his premise). The computers were vandalized, so what? Schools are obsolete? Yes, in their current form…he said nothing about teachers being obsolete. Holes in the research based on time comparisons? That wasn’t a measured value and was in fact irrelevant to his inferences. Low level learning? I find it hard to see his examples of classroom curiosity/collaboration/encouragement as a form of low-level learning. Peer pressure, girls missing? This wasn’t intended to be a long term solution to replace schools (and how does 1 picture show that girls didn’t use the holes in the wall?). Educational colonialism? I don’t see how this is even relevant to this discussion, don’t know what to even say about that.

I think Mitra’s reasoning led to the idea was that we need more self-paced learning with mediation, more big questions. We need to trust that the combination of curiosity, collaboration and encouragement is a recipe for learning.

Just my two cents! Thanks.