Do We Still Need Teachers in the Age of AI?

I saw an interview with Bill Gates recently where he said “AI will replace teachers in the next 10 years.” Not ‘teachers will use AI in the next 10 years’ or ‘supplement their teaching with AI’, but replaced by artificial intelligence.

And Bill Gates isn’t the only one raising this question. Here are some similar headlines:

• 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.”

These think pieces all ask if AI can teach more effectively than humans. If we have access to all of the world’s information at our fingertips, do we still need human beings to instruct our children?

We can understand why this question is being asked. AI is having a massive impact on how people work and perform their jobs, and it is already putting people out of work. Recent estimates show that up to 37,000 people have been displaced from their jobs because of AI in just the past four years since the launch of ChatGPT. I heard about a school in Texas that is attempting to go completely AI-driven, eliminating all teaching positions so AI can teach the standards and content. 

So is Bill Gates right? Are teachers on the chopping block because AI can deliver the standards and content instead of a warm-blooded human being?

I don’t think so. And it’s largely because school is about more than standards and content.

The Purpose of School

Perhaps the most critical question anyone connected to education should ask is: What is the point of school? And I think most would answer that it is to prepare students to be successful throughout their lives. So the next question is, what do they need to be successful? What is the ideal graduate? 

Probably more than just smart, right? 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, 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 first grade teacher named Heather who brings joy to reading instruction. She has so much patience and grace as she models and guides her students. And when they figure it out, when reading finally clicks, she feels so much joy. And her students feel that joy, passion, and confidence themselves. The joy radiates from Heather and flows to her students. It's a phenomenon called social contagion. The human brain mirrors the brains of passionate people. Passion is literally contagious. 

So it’s no wonder her students become lifelong readers. They don’t just learn how to read in Heather’s class, they learn to love it. 

And 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 plan lessons and units that make reading more engaging. 

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.