I really enjoyed reading your post HJ, and myself, had too many thoughts which turned into a post.
I asked HJ, a friend and activist from Monterrey (Mexico), about his insights on the OLPC project, specifically on its possible impact in Mexico. He mentioned that Carlos Slim spent 70 million for 250,000 XOs, which will be delivered to Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl in Mexico State, and Tuxtla Gutiérrez in Chiapas. (Carlos Slim controls 90% of the Mexican landline telephone market, and a big chunk of the cellphone market in Latin America. He is one of the richest people on earth – his wealth is equal to roughly 7% of Mexico’s annual economic output!) He also mentioned stories surrounding corrupt Mexican politicians, specifically in Education – Elba Esther Gordillo’s ways to misappropriate funds from the SNTE (Mexican National Educational Workers Union) for her own personal benefit. HJ noted four important points to remember when dealing with education in Mexico – 1) teach teachers how to teach 2) open source materials – to lower costs 3) information literacy 4) tech infrastructure
No matter how much we invest in tech, without a clear evolution of our education models, all similar efforts (tech related) will be pretty much a failure…
HJ suggests to invest all funds on basic education facilities and capabilities before getting the tech tools. Concentrate first on ways to engage teachers, before trying to reach the students. I agree completely to this point – teachers in the dev. world are far from motivated nor educated. How can they be expected to educate when they themselves do not have the tools? I say why not distribute the laptops to teachers? Why not give them access to the pools of information the device offers and let them use that as a way to be better motivated when teaching kids at schools.
On the other hand there’s something truly audacious about leaping over the existing hurdles – not dealing with the corrupt education system in Mexico, by trying to affect kids directly. Provide kids a chance to learn on their own without any dependencies on an existing failing system.
When I studied Economics in Tel-Aviv, the most important concept that stuck to my mind was thinking about alternative potentials. Economic theory is based on the value of the alternatives – what else we could do with a sum of money dictates how much it is worth. And this is precisely where I’m torn. On the one side, I can’t help but wonder what could have happened if all the money used to develop the XOs was invested directly in food, clothing and shelter for rural areas. But economic theories don’t really deal well with exceptions. And even though corruption is NOT an exception in Mexico, it is still difficult to display within behavioral equations, along with innovation. I applaud OLPC as an initiative. I just hope there is a well-thought out plan to integrate the XOs within local culture. How will the OLPC movement make sure they are not sold for money or food?
I’m heading down to Mexico for a couple of days at the end of November. I would have loved to be able to visit schools on some of my days there, and show kids the values of having a laptop. Will that be possible in the near future? If I want to buy the XOs for kids I meet while traveling, how can I make sure they are used properly?
In the picture above, kids I met while visiting the village of Zinacantan in Chiapas, Mexico. We sat together for a while, chatted and read the English book together.
To evolve our education system is a relevant issue against poverty, (its the only way we have to fight poverty) while we shouldn’t forget the basic need of our people, we cannot afford not to try to evolve it. I just hope we don’t leave it in hands of the wrong people. Maybe its time the private sector and civil society take problems in their hand instead of trusting our most valuable resource to the government… (HJ)
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