Will Teachers Get Obsolete in 21st Century?
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OCTOBER 2021
Digital live streaming and video repositories like YouTube have made education easy and teachers surplus.
Why?
It is a fact that all classroom sessions can be digitally recorded, so it lasts forever.
Once a teacher in any part of the world has recorded a lesson, it is now available for free or subscription to the world's entire population.
The pupil can access the lectures at any time, and they will last there forever. It takes only one teacher to record a quality session, and generations to come will reuse the lessons.
As experience has shown, many subjects and topics have nothing new to add with time. They are primarily repetitions. In practice, even in a school, a teacher has to teach multiple lessons to various sections of the same class.
The same lesson is taught to next year's class and the following year. As an observation, teachers repeat themselves with few changes in their lessons.
With time, the curriculum and instructions have been standardised. Thus, it makes a case for video replacement of the teachers, where the students can repeat the lecture on a digital platform.
Digital tools are now readily available worldwide via the internet to all social spectrum of students; hence, the school and classroom infrastructure will not play a significant factor in imparting the classroom session to a pupil.
Instead, it will be up to the pupil to secure an internet connection and device to start a class.
The advantage of this shift in the classroom model is that the variation of teachers' abilities across the schools, regions, and even countries will be equal.
For example, the same teacher in the video will teach a child in Africa as in the most developed country of Europe.
Moreover, many technology-enabled (TechEdu) companies have specialised software and pre-recorded video classes with graphics and animations.
They are already ahead in the game by teaching complex topics to young pupils.
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One can argue that in this way, technology will bring equality and true democratisation of education across the globe
One can argue that in this way, technology will bring equality and true democratisation of education across the globe.
The advantage can be direct to the pupil and the teachers.
With software-assisted pre-recorded teaching tools, the actual teachers can be freed up from classroom routine and move into the more sophisticated role of providing personalised feedback, follow-ups and facilitation.
They can assume a higher function of being a mentor.
It is easier for the pupil to learn from the pre-recorded classes. They can stop, rewind and learn at their own pace. It is the most significant part of the pre-recorded class and is a game-changer.
All pupils must comprehend the subject at same speed, in a conventional classroom setting.
As the case may be, the learning abilities of all the students are unique. Some of them lose out to faster learners.
Those slow students either miss out entirely or catch up later as homework. Also, they risk partially comprehending that lesson.
There are disadvantages too if teachers' role becomes diluted or obsolete. In a typical classroom setting, teachers bring discipline to the pupil's lifestyle.
Imparting lessons in a class cultivates a life skill of focussing – especially with young pupils. Therefore, the advantage of having a teacher's presence is indisputable.
Classroom teaching provides additional attention to the pupil and personal touch to the pupil's progress. It is as important as the subject matter.
Hence, any replacement of a teacher, especially with technology, will be detrimental to children's overall growth and carries significant social risk.
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Teaching by a human involves more than just lecturing lessons
Teaching by a human involves more than just lecturing lessons. It is also about inspiring and motivating students.
Though personality development may not come directly from the teacher, it comes from its ecosystem.
It includes the peer factor, which is a substantial contributing factor. A teacher facilitating a pupil's performance is not the same as the technology scoring an individual and giving feedback.
However, video games have proven otherwise, where the scores have motivated players to outperform beyond human limits, crossing into the territory of being addicted.
So far, we haven't seen cases of pupils addicted to science or mathematics.
On the economic front, any reduction in the role of traditional teachers will also affect the demography of the profession.
A sizable proportion of the national population, especially women, engages in teaching.
It is valid in the majority of the countries. Any change in technology-oriented education replacing teachers will damage the social fabric, societal economics, and gender to job balance.
The teaching profession has to adapt to the latest means, methods, and models with time.
Those repetitive lectures should be replaced with audio-visual pre-recorded methods, releasing the teachers with additional time and effort to reallocate themselves to more productive activities like self-help, learning new techniques and technology, or strengthening mental health.
In a substantial change to the teaching model, the teachers can be more productive and focused on themselves and their pupil's individual learning needs. It will be an upgrade, both for the teachers and the pupil.
Though teachers of the 20th Century will be obsolete, still they will replace as 21st-century technology-enabled teachers, who will be specialists and mentors.
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