Music, Books, and Psycho Space Robots: Robo-Teachers Could Destroy Education
- January 21st, 2011
- Posted in Music, Books and Psycho Space Robots
- By Kevin
- Write comment
Photo from dailymail.co.uk.
By Kevin Kenealy
Staff Writer, Nightmare Fuel Provider
Imagine entering a class as a second grader eager to meet your teacher, only to find out that she is a robot. Sadly, this isn’t a bad TV show. This is South Korea in 2011.
A recent article in PC Magazine reveals that South Korean schools are testing 29 robots to teach English to elementary school children in the southeastern city of Daegu.
I imagine the introduction going something like this: “I’m your teacher class. My name is Engkey [name of the robots]. Never mind that I’m a 3.3 ft. tall white bowling ball with a TV screen at the top with an avatar face of a Caucasian woman. I’m just like any other teacher you’ve ever had before.”
The robots come pre-installed with software that includes songs and alphabet games. They can also read books, and for some reason, can dance along to music by bobbing its head and moving flipper-like arms.
While Engkey may be physically teaching the class, Engkey is controlled by English teachers in the Philippines who can actually see and hear the students – and if you say that sounds like the role of spies and not teachers, I would agree.
Education officials in South Korea said the robots might actually be more effective than human teachers. According to Kim Mi-Young, a Daegu city education office official, the robots may be upgraded and be brought on as remote instructors full-time. Yet she says this is not an attempt to replace human teachers.
Mi-Young went on to say, “The kids seemed to love it since the robots look, well, cute and interesting. But some adults have also expressed interest, saying they may feel less nervous talking to robots than a real person.”
Nice that she says they won’t replace human teachers. Let me just shine some light on what you said there Ms. Mi-Young; by adding robots full-time, you are in effect, replacing human teachers. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.
And how many people did you talk to when you said the kids loved it and the adults expressed interest? If an adult working in a school has an easier time talking to a robot that is controlled by strange people in the Philippines, than that says a lot about the social skills about the adults in that school.
Photo from technabob.com.
This idea is a ridiculous one, but unfortunately is one that I wouldn’t doubt would make its way to the U.S. The way we cut education funding and lay off our teachers here, it would be a convenient fix to hiring a person to do a robot’s job.
We all want our children to grow up the same anyway. We want them to filter through No Child Let Behind, stress about the SAT and ACT, go to college to get a degree and then when we ask them what they went to school for, they’ll spit back what their major is and how that will help them get a job.
Robot teachers would be the perfect next step to filtering out an assembly line of students who all think alike. Hopefully a rebellious student acts out and pushes the robot teacher over so the students will find something familiar to their childhood toys: “Made in South Korea” or “Made in Taiwan.”
Wake up South Korea! Wake up United States! Watch Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” video and you’ll find it’s not too far from the truth. And in case that day does come with robot teachers in U.S. classrooms, it’s up to the students to go Office Space on those silly flipper-like arm dancing, avatar faced excuses for education.
Front page photo from dailymail.co.uk.
On its way to America? Pfft, Flordia doesn’t need teachers or robots!
I don’t think this is necessarily a bad idea depending on the circumstances. I don’t really agree with this for childhood education but it might be good for teen education because social skills have already been developed.
It also depends on the country. In Singapore no one would dare knock over the robot…unless they want 10 lashes of the cane.
One thing I have trouble discerning is why you think this is such a terrible idea? Because of reduced head counts for teachers? The auto industry and much of manufacturing are saying hello. These high tech robots will need to be replaced. More up to date information can easily be given and massively distributed on a daily basis. A Space Shuttle launch to Mars could be discussed the next day. You can get the same quality of teaching and education across the board.
A robot also doesn’t play favorites and is objective. Sucking up to a robot doesn’t work. Why is this such a bad idea again? This sounds awesome!
This does not sound awesome at all!
I can understand that technology is advancing and changing our education system. In fact, I completed all of my graduate work online. Two years in a distance education learning experience to get my Masters was a great experience and I’m glad I was able to do it. However, I was 22 when I started that program, I already knew how to socialize with people. This school children aren’t ready for that yet.
My undergraduate degree is in elementary education, so I can see why some people would be threatened by robots who are taking over their jobs. That wasn’t my first reaction when I read this though. I was more upset for the kids. Elementary school is the best time for socialization. These kids are not only learning about math and science, but a big part of going to school is learning to socialize with peers AND adults. When you take the adults out of that scenario you lose a lot of what children should be learning about.
Yes, robots are more objective, but good teachers are as well. I think instead of spending money making better robots that don’t pick favorites, we should spend money on educating people to become better teachers. Spend some money on paying those teachers more, and maybe you’ll get more motivated professionals who really care about children and who strive to make a difference in their student’s lives. Can a robot do that?
@Lora
I did say
“I don’t really agree with this for childhood education but it might be good for teen education because social skills have already been developed.”
Most of how we act is established by that point anyway and it is more about the trials of finding yourself. Adults can help with that but I would argue that there should be more councilors for making the difference in their lives. That is basically the sole job of the councilor in the first place. You could have many of them and set up a 30 minute meeting once a week as a part of standard education.
Also, no human is truly objective. Little things like who sits in the front, who gets picked on the most to answer questions, alphabetical order, knowing who the trouble maker is and lots of other various things create nonobjective behavior in small ways that do affect later behavior in life as adults.
I am not saying it is the correct way to go robots but I also don’t see why we shouldn’t do trial runs of it and see studies of the true pros and cons.