elizabethlevett

Bill Gates was quoted recently in the news saying that within ten years we won’t need teachers. AI will do our job. At first, I was discouraged and then deeply sad to hear this. Then I got mad enough to write. Somehow, I have a feeling that Bill and the eager developers of AI don’t truly understand what the job of teaching entails. I’ve been doing this thing in one form or another for around thirty-five years. And before you visualize me as pathetic, old, and irrelevant, don’t. I’m still very active. I’ve been a mentor, a model to other teachers, I’ve sat on our district/union’s Peer Assistance and Review panel, and I maintain my National Board certification. So let me see if I can help out by clarifying just what teachers do before we decide we’re expendable. I’ve compiled a list of twenty things we do that I seriously don’t think can be done by any form of artificial intelligence. There’s much more but this is just off the top of my head. I’m not sure Bill could handle this much. And note, while most of these are just part of the territory, many are contained in Standards for the Teaching Profession. (How many jobs actually have professional standards?)

1. Construct with intention and creativity, often on your own time, a language rich, developmentally appropriate, and engaging learning environment.

2. Meet with a parent who is in crisis, listen with compassion, and offer insight and support.

3. Buy shoes for that one kid who has holes in theirs.

4. Navigate a week of meetings, conferences, professional development sessions, missed busses, and broken copy machines, and still show up smiling.

5. Notice that one lonely kid on the playground and spend time with them even though you’re really just dying for a few minutes alone with a cup of coffee.

6. Earn the respect and trust of each child. Be that person they can come to when they’re crying, or scared, or proud, or exhausted, or maybe even having a seizure.

7. Guide students to find their voice — to stand up for themselves and each other.

8. Foster critical thinking in the moment, mindful of each individual student’s background.

9. Break up a fight and end up getting punched.

10. Prepare summative assessments using a combination of objective data and anecdotal evidence. Write complete and thoughtful comments for each child and turn all of this in on time.

11. Adapt and differentiate instruction from moment to moment to accommodate diverse learners, including the one who comes in late, the one whose parents are breaking up, the one whose parent has been arrested, the one who just arrived from another country, is scared, and doesn’t understand a word you’re saying.

12. Suddenly clean up puke or pee or whatever else suddenly shows up – while not derailing the other students’ morning. Make sure that the child involved doesn’t feel ashamed of what just happened. Get all manner of unspeakable stuff on your shirt from said child. Be the one who has to teach them how to blow their nose.

13. Hold hands with that one terrified or traumatized child during their first few fire drills. Explain to children why they have to become suddenly silent and invisible during shooter lockdown practice.

14. Stand around in any kind of weather for yard duty, ready for a basketball to hit the side of your head or a small child to run over with a problem (or a hug.)

15. Give students a variety of experiences in the arts, in science, etc., that make learning fun. (Think math games, painting, singing, exploring, and anything else that nurtures curiosity and fosters a love of learning.) Teach them to revere and cherish books, to not shrink back from history.

16. Explain to young and earnest parents why “No” is a loving word, a word that protects. After all, no is that fact of life which is the source of all the sweetness in “Yes.” The world will say NO to them plenty of times. Let them get used to the little disappointments early on so that they’ll be able to cope.

17. Attend a child’s funeral and sit with their grieving family.

18. Show up for work, day after day, while it’s still dark in the morning so that you’ll have everything ready for them.

19. Maintain a sense of humor and flexibility, no matter what new program your district decides is the best new thing they can pour their funding into. (Hint: It’s not your salary.)

20. Be there for that young teacher who is exhausted from staying late night after night and comes in crying because a parent went off at them in an email. Reassure them that it’s all worth it. That even though the money isn’t much and you can look forward to being knocked around by politicians, billionaires, and the media in general, there is nothing to compare with this life. As long as they keep making children in a complex world, human teachers will be important.

I was at a conference years ago at Boston College. One of the speakers defined teaching this way, “It’s where your greatest good meets the world’s greatest need.” If you think you can design AI to do all of this, good luck. I’ll go make coffee in the staff room. Let me know how it goes.