Last night, the movie Slumdog Millionaire won the coveted Academy Award for Best Picture of 2008.  If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it.  The main character is an orphan who grew up in the slums of India.  His education was from the school of hard knocks, so it was hard for others to believe that he was answering questions correctly on the TV show, Do You Want To Be A Millionaire.  It is a classic tale of good versus evil, overcoming adversity, and succeeding in life and in love.

I ran across a story recently about Vikas Swarup, the man who wrote the book Q&A upon which the movie was based.  Swarup said, “I was inspired by the hole-in-the-wall project, where a computer with an internet connection as put in a Delhi slum. When the slum was revisited after a month, the children of that slum had learnt how to use the wordwide web.”  “That got me fascinated and I realized that there’s an innate ability in everyone to do something extraordinary, provided they are given an opportunity. How else do you explain children with no education at all being able to learn to use the internet?”

I hadn’t heard of the Hole-in-the-Wall project so I went to the website and read about the wonderful work that this organization is doing.  On the home page, it explains, “Now, more than ever before, it is critical to look at solutions that complement the framework of traditional schooling. Minimally Invasive Education is one such solution – a solution that uses the power of collaboration and the natural curiosity of children to catalyze learning.”

I love this concept.  Children are absolutely learning machines.  They are naturally curious about the world around them.  I see this firsthand with my grandchild who is 23 months old.  Now is the time for all the rest of us to recapture our innate curiosity, desire to explore, and love of learning.  Go out today and learn something new!