Week 7- The World’s Cleverest Child and Me

I think an interesting example of distance learning comes from a documentary on Channel 4 called The World’s Cleverest Child and Me (Broadcast 28/01/09). A youtube link is here.

Adora, one of the children mentioned on the programme, follows an online curriculum, I am assuming because she would be too advanced to be in a school with others her age. It therefore provides her with the opportunity to learn at a more appropriate pace for her intelligence. In this way, the dispersal of the concept of education through the Internet allows her to access the materials she needs to learn as much as she can through virtuality, as she is able to be physically in one place but remotely accessing information from another which I see as a large benefit of eLearning.


I believe that this is achieved through gift economy, in that lots of the information online is published without expecting anything in return, and I also suspect that removing her from school and learning exclusively online would mean that she doesn’t have to cope with some of the difficulties which she may face in a traditional school environment, for example feeling like she’s different to everyone else and possibly being bullied. Something which she mentions in the clip, although claiming that she likes being different.

In this way it seems as if online learning works in her favour, in that she is able to get the education she would lack if she were to be placed in the traditional schooling system. However, I would dispute this cyber-utopian view if eLearning as being removed from school might also come with it’s own set of problems, as school is where we learn a great deal about ourselves, and functions to shape who we become as adults, but removing this her family and the Internet are the only way she has to learn about the outside world. Which I would argue does not result in a healthy mental development in terms of social skills.

Week 7- The World’s Cleverest Child and Me Cont.

In addition, Adora also teaches online lessons to schools in America about writing poetry. In this way she is able to share her knowledge and teach children in a way which they might be able to understand better as it comes from one of their peers. However, I would argue for a more cyber-distopian view of this as much of the motives behind charging for these online lessons are monetary rather than being for the joy of passing on knowledge, working off the gimmick that she is a children genius and it merely being used as a way to make her family more money.

Whilst it does mean that she’s able to teach a larger amount of people, and those who she wouldn’t be able to reach in person through virtuality, I also think that the fact that the Adora “brand” is represented through her web-site, which she coincidentally sells her book via, suggests to me that her parents are almost “cashing in” on her intelligence and the online tutorials she does (from her basement come T.V. studio) are being used to make a profit from her behind the guise of distance learning, the emphasis being on money rather than sharing knowledge with those who wouldn’t be able to have the same opportunities because of location.