Do We Need Teachers or Are They Becoming Obsolete

By Dr. Barrett Mosbacker

May 20, 2012

This is not a rhetorical question. Perhaps for the first time in history, serious questions are being raised about the long-term need for flesh-and-blood classroom teachers. For many this may seem ridiculous, but for those on the frontier of technology it is anything but. Consider the following developments.

Computers Approach Human Capacity to Grade Essays

A recent headline asked whether a computer can grade essays as well as a human — perhaps even better. According to the research cited, the answer is a qualified yes:

Computers have been grading multiple-choice tests in schools for years. To the relief of English teachers everywhere, essays have been tougher to gauge. But look out, teachers: A new study finds that software designed to automatically read and grade essays can do as good a job as humans — maybe even better.

The study, conducted at the University of Akron, ran more than 16,000 essays from both middle school and high school tests through automated systems developed by nine companies. The essays, from six different states, had originally been graded by humans.

Education columnist Michael Winerip described the outcome in The New York Times: computer scoring produced virtually identical levels of accuracy, with the software in some cases proving to be more reliable.

Artificial Intelligence

Machines that can think like and interact with human beings is the goal of Artificial Intelligence (AI). While holding a conversation with a C-3PO or R2-D2 is unlikely in the near future, the possibility of holding an intelligent conversation with a machine is not as preposterous or as far away as one might think. Consider just how unrealistic and futuristic today’s technology would have seemed twenty or thirty years ago. Imagine your grandfather’s reaction if you told him that you foresaw a world in which:

• Everyone will be connected by an invisible but all-pervasive thing called the Internet, accessible through computers, handheld smart phones, and tablet computers — devices through which one can store a digital library larger than the Library of Congress, read magazines and newspapers from around the world, listen to music, watch streaming movies, shop online, take college courses, book travel arrangements, access maps, play games, socialize through something called Social Media, look up restaurant reviews, keep up with breaking news, and search for almost anything one needs to know.
• Using computers, smart phones, or tablets, we will connect to the Internet wirelessly from virtually anywhere.
• Print books will slowly be replaced by digital books.
• We will be able to call a digital assistant and ask for directions, product suggestions, appointment scheduling, email and text composition, Internet searches, restaurant suggestions, weather checks, and calculations — all by voice.
• There will be driverless cars and pilotless planes.
• We will send a pilotless rover to Mars that will scamper about on the surface of the planet sending back photographs for several years.
• We will have voice-enabled mobile Global Positioning Systems on phones, tablets, and dedicated devices that communicate with satellites in space to give us turn-by-turn directions to our destination.

What once seemed preposterous — the stuff of science fiction — is now commonplace. This illustrates that the uninformed and unimaginative dismiss the capacities and likelihood of AI to their own peril. Consider this summary of research on the progress and promise of AI:

When will human-level AIs finally arrive? We don’t mean the narrow-AI software that already runs our trading systems, video games, battlebots and fraud detection systems. Those are great as far as they go, but when will we have really intelligent systems like C3PO, R2D2 and even beyond? When will we have Artificial General Intelligences (AGIs) we can talk to? Ones as smart as we are, or smarter? Well, as Yogi Berra said, “it’s tough to predict, especially about the future.” But what do experts working on human-level AI think? To find out, we surveyed a number of leading specialists at the Artificial General Intelligence conference (AGI-09) in Washington DC in March 2009. These are the experts most involved in working toward the advanced AIs we’re talking about. The majority of the experts who participated in our study were optimistic about AGI coming fairly quickly, although a few were more pessimistic about the timing. It is worth noting, however, that all the experts in our study, even the most pessimistic ones, gave at least a 10% chance of some AGI milestones being achieved within a few decades. In broad terms, our results concur with those of the two studies mentioned above. All three studies suggest that significant numbers of interested, informed individuals believe it is likely that AGI at the human level or beyond will occur around the middle of this century, and plausibly even sooner.

AI and Robot Teachers

Mobile technology and ubiquitous access to the Internet, combined with online learning, have led many to suggest that the days of the traditional classroom teacher are limited. Experimental robot teachers have already appeared in rudimentary form — crude by current standards, perhaps, but remarkable by those of twenty years ago. The question is not what is possible now but what may be possible in the not-too-distant future.

I am not ready to dismiss AI, robots, or some other yet-to-be-imagined technology as incapable of teaching, if one defines teaching as conveying information, assessing knowledge and measurable skills, and then customizing a new instructional routine to address identified weaknesses. Such technology is already available in rudimentary form through computer-aided instruction (CAI).

Teaching versus Educating

However, the transmission of information and the use of sophisticated algorithms to customize lessons and testing are not the same thing as educating students. Transmitting knowledge is necessary for a good education but is not sufficient. Teaching and educating are not necessarily synonymous. No matter how sophisticated our technology becomes, it is doubtful that it can replace educators. Here is why: the transfer of information does not:

• Equal nor impart wisdom
• Provide a role model
• Convey passion and a love of a subject
• Discipline
• Build relationships nor teach how to navigate difficult relationships
• Add the emotional element vital to learning
• Question deeply by engaging in Socratic dialogue
• Mentor students
• Serve students
• Pray for students
• Love students

Technology can only be conceived as a replacement for traditional classroom teachers if we reduce teaching to the transfer of information, drilling skills, and preparation for test taking. Sadly, too many teachers have been reduced to this mundane level — such teachers are replaceable.

Loving, wise, dedicated, servant-hearted educators who mentor, pray for, and discipline their students will never be replaced. They have nothing to fear from technology. For such educators, technology is their servant, not their master or replacement.