Robots make great pancakes and coffee – but can they also teach?

Last month, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney caused some alarm with his prediction that 15 million British jobs could be replaced by robots, due to advancing technology. His speech, at Liverpool John Moore’s university, did not mention teaching as a profession likely to be affected but if surgeons, paralegals and (yikes!) commercial pilots can be replaced by robot technology, the question must be posed: could a robot teach as well as a human?

Let’s firstly try to look at this without emotion (just as a robot might): a robot’s subject knowledge would be second to none. There would be no time lapse with mental arithmetic, for example – even the best maths teacher has to think for a bit when working out 23 x 57, but a robot’s processor would be as fast as any calculator. A robot would undoubtedly have a bigger vocabulary and, what’s more, would be able to verbalise the definition of tricky little words such as jejune or capricious – words that human teachers may know the meaning of but nevertheless find it hard to explain. A robot would know how to say the Shetland Islands in Mandarin. A robot would measure success and offer praise as appropriate, without overdoing it or withholding it. And a robot could get all its marking done in a flash.

So far so good for the robots, but let’s consider the benefits of a human teacher. A teacher’s role is not strictly to identify right and wrong answers: it is to read between the answers, checking why some are wrong by examining students’ written calculations, identifying whether mistakes are made by minor error or major misunderstanding. We know our students and we can tell whether they have rushed their homework or demanded the answers from parents – oh yes, we know when you’ve caved in and done it all for them! We are experts in body language; once I get to know a child, I can tell from looking at the back of their head whether they need help or encouragement. And that brings me to praise: some children need a lot more praise than others (and some hate praise and would prefer none). We may be slightly – ever so slightly – slower than an actual calculator when it comes to mental arithmetic, but we are able to explain how to work out the answer and we can show you a few different methods so that you can pick the one that works best for you. To teach well, you have to understand all the ways to get it wrong, as well as all the ways to get it right.

Human teachers can understand your human child precisely because we are also human. We know that every person is a unique combination of thoughts and feelings and understanding and confusion and wonderment and sometimes even disinterest. A robot doesn’t understand any of that and that is why I am quite sure we human teachers will carry on igniting interest and solving problems and correcting confusion for many years to come.