Adam Bessie and Arthur King have created a comic that illustrates the numerous attempts over the past 100 years of automating teaching. They point to Fanz Kafka’s writings and highlight several attempts at automation from Pressley’s teaching machine in 1915, to Skinner’s Box in the 1930’s and finally to the EngKey egg shaped robot that is currently used by South Korea elementary schools to help teach English.
Perhaps the most helpful or alarming fact that Bessie and King offer is their statement that:
…we don’t need “teaching machines” to mechanize Education.
Human teachers just need to act like robots, teaching to the standardized test, never complaining, following the script and making sure students do as well.
If we were to focus on significant learning environments that incoporate critical and analytical thinking rather then the regurgitation of information the threat of the teaching machine wouldn’t be a threat.
