www.thecourieronline.co.uk Monday 4 March 2013 Issue 1267 Free
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Shamed lecturer sent down for ‘bizzare’ graffiti A University professor has been sentenced for “bizarre” crimes of vandalism in Jesmond Dene. Appearing before a judge last Friday, Professor Stephen Graham, who is a senior lecturer in Newcastle University’s school of Architecture, has been given an order of compensation and a nine month prison stretch suspended for one year. The sentence followed a spree of “polite” graffiti scrawled onto the sides of cars on Northumberland Gardens and other nearby streets last August. This act of vandalism, which was repeatedly described by the judge as “bizarre”, entailed the defacing of 27 vehicles belonging to local residents, causing a confirmed £28,586 worth of damage. Words such as “arbitrary”, “very silly” and “really wrong” were scratched by a screwdriver onto the sides of parked vehicles. Professor Graham had been under the influence of three quarters of a bottle of
gin on the night of Monday 27 August 2012, whilst also taking antibiotics and other medication. The lecturer is said to have left his house at around 11pm on the evening of the 26 August wearing a suit jacket, sleep mask and no trousers, and was subsequently seen on camera wandering for two hours before initiating the act of vandalism two hours later. Professor Graham, who was described by his barrister as a “much respected and sought after” academic, will pay up to £9,972 worth of compensation. The story caught national attention from the press back in August, when the event was covered by the Daily Mail and the BBC. The court was told by the judge: “[This] is not a man who has set about to cause damage, but instead a man who was probably not with himself.” The defendant was told by the judge: “You were a vandal that night, albeit a vandal who was suffering quite a serious condition. You will be deprived of your livelihood’s savings as a result. I hope you are not deprived of your livelihood as well.”
subjects including DNA sequencing, trigonometry and avionics. “In nine months a child left alone with a computer would reach the same standard as an office professional in the West,” he said in his TED acceptance speech. “By 2009, thanks to advances in technology, it was possible to ‘beam’ teachers to places where they could not, or did not want, to go, and so I created a ‘granny cloud’ of retired school teachers who would encourage children to learn by themselves. “By 2012, teachers around the world were using SOLEs – self-organised
learning environments – where children would group around internet connections to discuss Big Questions. The teacher would merge into the background, and watch as the learning happened.” His experiment has prompted imitations all over the world, and helped inspire the book Q&A by Vikas Swarup, which in turn inspired the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire. Professor Mitra won the TED Prize for submitting a “wish” that the TED network help him build an online “School in the Cloud” in India, “where children continued on page 4
By Susie Beever News Editor
Fresh Meat on the breakfast menu
News p.5
‘Slumdog’ lecturer wins coveted TED prize By Anna Templeton News Editor Professor Sugata Mitra, a Professor of Educational Technology at the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences has won a million dollar prize. Professor Mitra accepted the prize last week for his work in transforming education in the developing world, and for his part in inspiring the film Slumdog Millionaire. The organisers of the Technology, Entertainment and Design conference hand out the annual TED Prize to an
individual with a “creative and bold vision to spark global change.” The TED Prize supports “one wish to inspire the world.” The TED Prize is awarded by the California-based non-profit ideas network TED. Previous winners have included Bill Clinton, Jamie Oliver and Bono. Mitra’s work took part in the slums of India where he proved that any child, irrespective of their social situation, has the ability to be computer literate. The expert in education believes the Internet allows children even from the poorest parts of the world to develop
intellectually if they are encouraged to work with each other. The professor installed a computer in a slum in Kalkaji, Delhi, in 1999. His work became to be known as a ‘holein-the-wall’ experiment, which led to a fundamental reassessment of the position of formal education. Hidden monitoring showed the benefits of what Mitra nicknamed ‘Minimally Invasive Education.’ Left to their own devices, children can seamlessly learn to use computers and the Internet. He also found that children working in groups were able to tackle complex