I Can Certainly Say That Technology Can Never Replace Us

The COVID-19 has given the opportunity for technology to become the pivot of teaching and learning. Okay, so we all got that, perfect. “Now, before, after, during, the pandemic has not allowed any technology to take over, it was always there”. That’s what we might all assume as well to say. However, whoever is on that team I just wanted to say yes you’re right technology was pretty much already the pivot of our daily lives. However, not to the same proportion as seen now. Everyone’s on Zoom. Everyone’s on Blackboard. Everyone’s on Google Classroom. Everyone’s behind a screen.

Again, I’m not going into how excessive technology usage is terrible for a child or whatnot. Certainly, that’s one issue already discussed by many. The argument I’m presenting is a simple understanding that technology can never replace us, us the being human that has been lacked for a while because of the pandemic, and whoever says either can go give it a go, a life of no one except themselves, a screen, and a click but wait you’re already there with us. As many already know, I try to keep my discussion according to what I know solely about: teaching and learning. I’ve browsed them all, watched them all, seen them all, and shared them all. Teachers simply miss their students and students simply miss their teachers. The videos, the photos, the poems, the rants, and the raves all signify that we can’t do it anymore. We can’t stay out of our classrooms, we can’t use that square thing in front of us that is forcefully there because we have no other choice.

Yes, it has helped us and always will. Technology has enabled us to do something about it rather than do nothing. If we go back a hundred years, when pandemics happened, or anything that puts us away from a classroom, it would have been practically impossible to give teaching for a group of students a go. That has all changed now. Now we can actually give a class without being in class. We can discuss, analyze, carry our activities, read, write, and just do whatever needs to be done to progress our pupils and allow them the right to learn.

However, those who believe that technology should be much more used, to the degree that it seems as though the teacher can just leave the classroom. “Look, teacher, you’re great but someone can make your life a whole lotta easier for both you and the students. You don’t need to be here and they don’t need to either. We’ve got technology now”. That’s the problem there, after experience all of this pandemic stuff, it’s pretty much universally agreed that technology, you’re great, you’re terrific but you’re there to help us and only that. An assistant, a second hand, an enabler of severality whilst on a check but you can never ever replace us.

“Humans need Humans” (Hirsh-Pasek, Schlesinger, Golinkoff, Care, 2018) this is where we start to get a bit scientific. Okay, guys so what we’re talking about here is something called human interactions. Brainspire presents a perfect explanation, stating that “Human interaction can be defined as any action that is taken between two humans, for better or for worse.” so in other words its anything that includes two people and interactions, pretty easy. Now, when such things are left out from people especially children things are only bound to get worse. In a recent study provided by Brookings, it was revealed that human interaction left learning students a greater win than if left to be taught without it. An insight to what I mean can be seen when two groups of students are left with no human interactions, once one group went on a 5-day trip it was revealed that those who went on the trip got a far superior grading on a test prepared by the researchers and that’s all because of human interactions.

So, again, technology you’re great, but you can never replace us. The best is to assume a balance between a techy obsession and a face to face human interaction. That and only that is the comprise which allows a progression. But, now, let’s just go past all of this, our classroom awaits us all. Like Alex Beard wrote on his latest book, Natural Born Learners:

“And if the robots do take the jobs, it’s our human qualities that will count…The greatest impact of technology on learning may paradoxically be to push us towards the human (p. 306).”