Never Send a Teacher to Do a Machine’s Job

And vice versa.

There’s a line from the Matrix in which Agent Smith warns never to send a human to do a machine’s job. The Matrix isn’t real (or is it?), but that’s some solid advice in our tech-driven world. For educators, we’d make one slight change: never send a teacher to do a machine’s job.

Technology promises to revolutionize education, but tech alone isn’t the answer. Sure, devices and apps can expedite learning, remove time and space restrictions, and keep today’s digital native students engaged. But even the most effective technology can’t replace a teacher, especially when implemented poorly. One could argue technology actually makes teachers more necessary. Someone has to fill the role of trainer, integrator, and motivator. “Revolutionize” doesn’t equate to “replace.”

In 5 Big Mistakes in Educational Technology and How to Fix Them (an insightful, actionable book that provided the inspiration for this post’s title) the very first “big mistake” is the counterproductive relationship between teachers and tech:

“Guided by the narrow view that a teacher’s primary job is to transmit knowledge, technology has traditionally been viewed as something to either replace the teacher or aid the teacher […] A more productive relationship may be in the middle. That is, technology can replace certain functions of the human teacher but not entirely. In the meantime, teachers do not need to control technology as simply a teaching tool to enhance instruction. Instead they should relinquish some of their teaching responsibilities to technology and shift their energy to do things that technology cannot do.”

The problem isn’t that teachers aren’t doing enough, it’s that they’re capable of doing so much more than the traditional classroom allows. Technology simply executes many aspects of teaching better than a human teacher ever could. (The inverse is true, too, though.) The trick is to implement technology in a way that lets both teachers and tech do the things at which they excel.

At Transparent Language, we have spent the last decade working with language teachers at government training centers, public schools, universities, libraries, and beyond to discover that balance. It was only in flipping our educational models that we found it.

In our flipped teaching model, students use our technology to “front load” their language abilities by learning vocabulary and phrases independently before class. Teachers then use precious class time to build on what their students have already learned, practicing and applying that knowledge through communicative activities and task-based strategies. Picture this: a group of 3rd graders come to class having already learned 2 dozen food- and drink-related Spanish words and phrases on a game-like online course. They spend class time drawing restaurant menus, performing skits as waiters and restaurant-goers, and go pretend grocery shopping around their classroom.

The result is a more rewarding classroom experience for the students and their teachers. Everyone benefits from more time spent actively engaging, rather than passively listening.

This isn’t to say we’ve found the one and only way to integrate technology into a curriculum. Our exact set-up may not be right for every subject or age group, but the principle is in place: our tech can do what it does best (promote rote memorization of new words and phrases) and language teachers can then do what they do best (engage students in conversations, facilitate activities, and confirm learning). As Harsha Sharma so eloquently argues:

“Teachers are not, and cannot be automatons handing out information to students […] A computer can give information, but a teacher can lend a hand, or an ear, and discern what’s necessary for a student to succeed, and to want to succeed.”

While you should never send a teacher to do a machine’s job, you should never send a machine to do a teacher’s job either. It’s time we ask ourselves: what can technology do that I cannot? What can I do that technology cannot? And go from there.

We’ve heard that “teachers will not be replaced by technology, but teachers who do not use technology will be replaced by those who do.” We prefer this subtle difference from the former Chancellor at Defense Language Institute: technology will not replace teachers, but teachers who use technology well will replace those who do not.