School vs. In-home Mechanical Teachers in Uppers Lit (6th/7th)

This trimester we are reading and writing short stories. Last week, we read, “The Fun They Had”, by Isaac Asimov. This science fiction story, written in 1951, challenges the reader to think about the purpose of, and their experience with, school and technology. 

Monday: Summary Writing

D (6th): In the year 2157 a boy named Tommy finds an old book with paper in his attic and is surprised that it has paper pages and is not on a screen. The book is about school and how it was back in the day. He shows the book to his friend Margie who is very bewildered at the fact the men used to be teachers instead of robots. Speaking of mechanical teachers, that's the reason Margie has been hating school recently because the teacher was assigning too much homework so Mafrgie’s mother calls an inspector to fix the teacher. After the teacher is fixed Margie begins to be jealous of how people lived over a century ago and thinks about “The fun they had”.

R (7th): In this story, the main character, Margie, is living in a world where there are robots for teachers, digital books only, and remote school at home. Her friend, Tommy, finds a physical paper book in an attic, astonishing both him and Margie. This leads to a series of questions, like what did people do after they finished reading the book? Or, why do the words stay in one place all the time?  In the end, Margie becomes jealous of the old days, wishing, and wondering, what it would be like to live at that time.

Tuesday/ Wednesday: Compare/ Contrast, Pros vs. Cons, and Persuasive Strategies

The class created lists comparing the pros and cons of school vs. having an in-home mechanical teacher (programmed for each individual student). Once our lists filled the whiteboard, students were introduced to their creative assignment, creating two flyers, one advertising school and the other, mechanical teachers. 

School

Pros: Human interaction, a variety of teachers, and compassion

Cons: Bullying, commuting, and cost

Mechanical Teacher

Pros: Personalized for each student, grades assignments easily 

Cons: They malfunction, no feelings

Before students began working independently, they learned about persuasive strategies using ethos, pathos, and logos. Students were given examples of different product taglines and worked together to decide whether the words indicated an appeal to emotion, relied on credibility/character, or used logic/reason. Using what they learned about persuasive strategies, they came up with different taglines to use on their flyers. 

Thursday: Do you think it’s possible for the world to move to the education model in this story? 

M (6th): I think that the world could probably move to the education model in this story because when you go to school the goal is to learn, but schools often also come with bullies, drama, fights, and other unnecessary social interactions. I think that if everyone had a digital teacher it would be easier because for some people there are no schools close to them so it is hard to get to school, but if you had a digital teacher you wouldn't even have to leave your house. Even though I think that this might be the future we are moving towards I don’t necessarily agree with it. I think that school with real people is better because not only are you learning things like literacy, math, and science but you are also learning social skills which are important.

M (6th): I think it's definitely possible for the world to move to the education model in this story. I don't think it would take centuries for it to happen. AI and Robots are already taking over most jobs and that hasn't taken that long. I've looked this up before and the internet says, “AI is predicted to automate or significantly impact jobs involving repetitive tasks, data entry, basic customer service, and roles in fields like transportation, manufacturing, and office administration,’’ and I think teachers and education is one of them.

M (7th): I think it’s possible for education in parts of the world to get close to the education model in the story, robotic teachers, because as of now jobs are constantly being replaced by AI. During Covid most people were just on a screen in a room in their house after all. Also, robots could potentially be better for the environment seeing as the manufacturing of school buses, school equipment, and the building of schools wouldn’t be necessary. However, I don’t think it likely that robots actually would completely replace schools and teachers, at least not in the way “The Fun They Had” imagined. I mean, schools have been around in the world for a long time and I think there would probably be a lot of backlash if robots were used instead of teachers.

Friday: Flyers

Students chose to use Canva or Google Slides to create their flyers. They considered what words and images would attract people to their products, school!

Overall, the Uppers agree that human interaction is important and feels good. We could spend another week working with this story, but it’s on to the next one!