I would definitely have to agree with you Nick in that I was truly very surprised that the SITE experiment in India did not seem to be very successful at all. The experiment drew upon development in several key areas such as education, health and hygiene, and even agriculture.
Thussu does seem to mention that it was successful in that it did help to develop India’s own satellite program in the future, INSAT. Also, it was important because it was able to help create awareness about social problems and brought audio visual technology to rural communities.
Unfortunately, Thussu also goes into detail in where SITE seemed to fail. First, it seems that it did not bring about much change in the areas of both school education and also did not seem to help encourage the use of birth control. Although, Thussu does state that women were often times discouraged from viewing and advice that was given on agriculture only seemed to applied to the wealthier farmers and not to the majority of the rural population.
Overall, it seems that SITE did not bring about that many significant changes or improvements to the region, but I do believe it was a great first time effort to attempt to use technology towards fostering development
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The most important job of adult education is relating the education directly to what relates to the participant's life. Adults are adults - they have lives, responsibilities, reasons for the behavior they engage in. They are not 'sponges' as often children are compared to. Education must be relevant to them, considered valuable by them or it will be disregarded.
ReplyDeleteAnd you have to deal with the meta-ideas of education as well. Why should you be trusted/an authority? What are your goals and how do they coincide with the students? The students, as they are adults, should be treated as equals, with a stake in the education course - their needs should inform the curriculum and not vice versa. You can educate them about some needs they may not be aware of, but always take stock of what they're bringing into the classroom - preconceptions, assumptions on form/content/usage of material, method of teaching, prior knowledge.
I can easily see how this could go awry.