You are better than Duolingo. I got this card from one of my Spanish students this year along with some end of year cookies. Perhaps the most honest and timely teacher gift I have ever received. Given the chaos of the last three years, this felt like the perfect way to close a “pandemic” chapter and open a “what now” chapter.

Will computers replace teachers? This question was very seriously thrown around pre-pandemic. In this article and in his book Sir Anthony Sheldon – Master of Wellington College – maintains that the shift to AI learning is coming. I can’t help but feel that most parents (who had the job of online tutors) and teachers (who experienced the importance seeing the faces of their students) would disagree.

What do you think? After the pandemic do you think we are more or less likely to accept AI teachers in schools?

This summary from the Washington Post published in the middle of the second school lockdown (2021) looks at the history of replacing teachers with technology going back as far as 1820’s, when various school monitors were used to support one teacher who was instructing from a telegraph machine. However: “as one visitor found in 1827 on a surprise inspection of a New York City Lancasterian school, even with their telegraph and other 1800s high technology, child monitors were not able to control students’ “disposition to Levity and Laughter, which Seemed rather generally to prevail.”

A modern school team that has experimented with AI teaching is Rocketship Schools – started in California by an ex-silicon valley executive. Check out minute 5:30 of this PBS video to see their learning labs in action. Rockship’s model origionally included 1.5 hours a day of AI learning in large computer labs – 150 kids and 150 screens, monitored by “technicians”. PBS identified the problems with the learning labs in just one visit. Luckily – the school was seeing it as well and has continued to innovate rather than using a model which is not producing the results they anticipated.

Problem: no relationship – no motivation – no learning.

Since 2013, when this PBS report was published, the learning labs are gone from Rocketship and the computers are back in the classroom. They are still using Online Learning to support student instruction but supervised directly by a teacher. In their new information/mission/propaganda the focus is on community, relationships, building connections, and individualized learning. Not solved by some magic button which can be programmed, but by a team of human professionals working together to get to know children personally and understand and address their individual strengths and needs.

It comes down to relationship. Despite what TV and science fiction would like us to believe, computers and AI still do no respond in ways that encourage strong interpersonal relationships. As a young reader I worked my way through all the Ann McCaffrey books, including the Brain Ship series. In these books a baby with severe physical disabilities is given a rocket ship body. The drama centers around the ship’s humanness – and why it is important to have a caring, feeling person at the helm. The same is true in the classroom. I have always known this and it has been confirmed by research – many, many times.

So as we go into the “what next” phase of education in September please remember… you matter. Being a nurturing, human, empathetic person is what is going to make the most difference for your students. Your belief in their potential to learn and grow will tide them over when they are overtired and overstimulated. When they believe that they don’t matter and that the world is too big for change, when tic toc and twitter are telling them that they don’t have worth and don’t matter. Change will come through one relationship at a time, lifting up children and each other. You are better than Duolingo.

-What are ways that you build relationships in your classroom? Do you remember a particular educator who made a difference for you? Share in the comments!-