With AI, Do We Still Need Teachers?

If you’ve been paying attention over the past couple of years, you’ve probably heard about artificial intelligence.

Maybe you know about it because there’s been a lot of talk about AI in the education world. From countless books and professional development sessions to keynotes at conferences, AI has left a significant mark on schools. Or maybe you know about it because students in your class have used it to cheat. Perhaps you’ve read a student essay that used the word aforementioned, and you thought, “There’s no way my eighth-grade student would ever use the word 'aforementioned'.” 

Or perhaps you’ve seen some of the headlines about how powerful AI is and how it might be used to teach students so effectively that we might not need teachers anymore.

I’ve collected headlines over the past year. Here are a few of them:

• From EdWeek: “Will Artificial Intelligence Help Teachers—or Replace Them?”
• From ScienceDirect: “Will Generative AI Replace Teachers in Higher Education?”
• From Futurism.com: “High School Starts Replacing Teachers With AI.”

The truth is, AI is having a massive impact on how people work and perform their jobs, and it is already putting people out of work. I heard about a school in Texas that is attempting to go completely AI-driven, eliminating all teaching positions because AI can effectively teach the standards and content. 

But there is a glaring problem with this:

School is about more than standards and content.

What is the point of school?

If I were to ask you, what is the ideal graduate? You’d probably respond with more than just the word “smart.” You might say the ideal graduate is empathetic, collaborative. They can think critically, can lead people, solve complex problems, has work ethic, grit, is resilient, kind, goal oriented.

The ideal graduate is the kind of person we want in our communities and society.

So if that's what we want, school should be a place that emphasizes the development of those traits and characteristics and skills. That's what school should largely be about, and I don't see artificial intelligence doing this by itself. Content and subject matter is of course important, but only if it can be properly applied in the world, and possessing knowledge is simply not enough to do that successfully.

The Need for Human-Connection in School

This requires hands-on learning experiences. It needs learning in-community. It requires teachers and educators to model and inspire.

It requires human connection. 

AI is powerful, but it’s not human. I know a teacher named Heather who brings joy to reading instruction. So much patience and grace as she models and guides her students. Oh but when they figure it out, when it clicks, she feels so much joy. And her students feel that joy and passion and confidence themselves. The joy radiates from Heather, and it flows into her students. So it’s no wonder her students become lifelong readers. They don’t just learn how to read, they learn to love it. I don’t see ChatGPT doing that.

We Still Can Still Benefit from AI in the Classroom

Now, Heather can use AI to give students instant feedback on their work, spending less time grading and more time actually working with kids. She can use it to make personalized reading plans for students, use speech recognition to teach phonetics, or lots of other things with it. 

AI is powerful and useful, and I do think we need to find ways to take advantage of it to deeper student learning. 

But it is just another tool in the toolbelt. Call me old school, but I think students will always need trained professionals who love what they teach and deeply care about who they teach. 

AI is an incredible tool, but humans will always need humans.