This is a forever rant - I could make it every day. Today’s version of the rant was inspired by this - a piece of writing by an educator who ought to know better, but still falls into the trap of writing from the standpoint that: if a computer can present information effectively to learners, then there is no need for teachers. This is a grave misunderstanding of what teachers do. But it’s persistent, and in fact so persistent that teachers still feel as though they have to talk from within this model.
The reality is that ever since the print revolution, a better teacher than the one standing in front of you has been available to every learner on the planet. The writers and editors of textbooks are often leaders in their fields. Modern textbooks are beautifully honed pedagogical instruments. And if you want to go beyond them, there are any number of books written by cutting edge thinkers or world’s-best communicators. Plus, today, YouTube educational videos of such spectacular quality it makes you weep. The educator standing in front of you is an embarrassment compared to the riches available online.
And yet, you’d be an idiot to just let your kid loose on the internet. Teachers are necessary. And they’ll still be necessary even when ChatGPT does a really good impression of a teacher.
So, if teachers are not valuable for the information they give to learners, then what are they good for? The answer is straightforward: emotional support.
I would love for all teachers to properly stop pretending that they provide knowledge, and talk to learners, parents, investors, themselves, and the greater world as if we could all acknowledge this simple truth. If you want knowledge, it costs about 10 USD for a bookful. But if you want a person to have that knowledge, the process of getting there requires emotional work, and no one in the world is capable of doing that emotional work themselves. So we pay people to encourage, cajole, and force us through it.
Which is why the internet - infinite and amazing educational resource though it is - didn’t kill the teaching profession. And it’s why ChatGPT won’t, either. Because these resources open up the possibilities of learning more. But someone is still going to have to sit your little darlings down and make them do it. Teachers, coaches, learning support specialists, call them what you will.
A couple of side points: (1) Classroom assistants are teachers. They do the emotional support for students who need it. They may not have the qualification of a teacher, but as I’m arguing: that doesn’t really matter. What matters is walking the children through the emotional process of accepting that they don’t know a thing, and need to make some effort in order to know it. Classroom assistants do that bit. (2) With children, the emotional support is often just forcing them. (3) Because you’re just forcing the children, you have to do all the planning for them, which means you do have to know the material. You don’t have to be much better than the learners, but you do have to know it.