The authorities’ attempt to strengthen the role of artificial intelligence in education has caused a heated debate in Russian schools. Smart machines are invited to check homework and prepare study schedules. Everything is explained by the desire to ease the workload of teachers and save them from a boring routine.
But teachers were so angry at the prospect of digitalization of schools that representatives of the Ministry of Digital Development had to reassure them: Automation will be implemented smoothly and gradually by 2030, they say. But what is the cause of the conflict? Are modern teachers really like the Luddites of the 19th century? (To those who participated in spontaneous protests against the introduction of machines during the industrial revolution in England)Is progress so hated? Or are teachers afraid that a good idea will again be spoiled by crooked implementation?
Generally speaking, the response is pretty surprising. Especially when watching him from inside. I am an educator. And I’m for progress. I believe that automation of processes, routine, simple mechanics, and bureaucracy that are not directly related to life and human interaction is happiness.
The teacher’s main field of activity is teaching lessons, and there are no robots that threaten the teacher here. Let the machines write the reports. The homework issue does not seem very clear, but there are so many problems today that solving them with the help of artificial intelligence does not seem like such a bad option. Regardless, this is an issue that can and should be discussed. So what do I see in the teaching environment? Anger, resentment, fear.
I heard from my colleagues that digitalization bothers them as a fact, that the authorities are once again trying to humiliate them with the help of artificial intelligence and other neural networks, in the end they want to reduce the role of teachers to instructors or operators of this damn thing. machines and what is it, everything can no longer be tolerated.
And these are not retired teachers from the old regime from the dark provinces who actually exist only in the imagination of the average person; These are St. They are young teachers who work in St. Petersburg schools, fully competent in modern technologies. But why is this?
It feels like something is preventing teachers from looking at the situation objectively. Maybe an injury? You know, lately I haven’t been able to shake the feeling that our teachers are incredibly traumatized people. They suffer from low wages, society’s indifferent attitude, and crazy bureaucratic initiatives (of course, there are many of them). As a result, post-traumatic syndrome does not allow teachers to see even the slightest kindness that is sometimes brought up.
If we talk specifically about automation, teachers’ resistance probably stems from the collective trauma that aggressive computerization inflicted on them during the 2020-2021 distance education period.
Unfortunately, in a regime that was completely unprepared for the pandemic, in the wake of the panic that gripped everyone, everything was done really badly, if not in the worst way possible. Lack of technical tools, hastily created and crookedly functioning platforms, an underdeveloped regulatory framework, as well as constant demands from above that even in these conditions teachers not only go out, but also rise to the occasion – this will drive everyone crazy.
And yet the madness never went away. Various digital pleasures still fall generously on the school. But we’re definitely not talking about artificial intelligence, we’re just talking about digital garbage. They are always trying to use teachers, students, parents to promote, for example, a number of Internet projects, the whole essence of which consists in the use of budget funds.
Either school-age children should be required to register on some sites and take courses there for a healthy lifestyle, then they should be made to participate in a competition for energy saving, or a video about CNC machine operators should be played in the classroom. (numerically controlled)and it doesn’t matter if it’s a literature lesson, then vote for something online. After all this, it is clear that any talk of digitalization and automation will lead to eye twitching.
And so, when the bright idea finally comes that the numbers can be directed in the right bureaucratic direction, the teachers shrink into a thorny heap due to inertia: we do not want, we do not believe, at least we protest. If you practice, everything will be bad again.
Although we are talking about throwing paperwork into machines, then even bad is good in this regard. And if we talk about homework, even officials with robots are unlikely to do worse.
It would be necessary to clarify this idea. First of all, about the paperwork: all those study schedules, calendar and lesson planning, folders of educational work. All these documents are so official and so uninteresting to anyone except the inspectors, so unaffected by the actual educational process, that only either a completely worthless employee who cannot do anything else or a complete masochist can hold on to it.
Frankly, if the neural network produces nonsense, there is no problem. Anyway, no one will read this nonsense, and even the inspectors are unlikely to notice the difference – they themselves are a little robot, they only scan the title pages.
As for homework, it has long become a fiction. And this is really sad, contrary to the situation in the documentation.
The fact is that if homework is given from textbooks, it will be shamelessly stolen from the websites of the State Educational Institution. It is also quite difficult to find exercises on your own in the eternal school jam, and teachers should not do the work of developers of educational literature. And this measure is ineffective unless you prepare individual exercises for each student. But you can’t produce one task for each student when there are hundreds of them per teacher, but if you give two or three options for a class, they copy from each other and they can do the first one in that chain. Use the help of neural networks. Unlike their teachers, young people are not afraid of technology.
When they say that the teacher, while checking the standard assignments, still studies each student and writes some kind of individual comment, I can only smile skeptically. In Russia, he works for a salary 1.5 times the average teacher’s salary and takes at least five lessons a day in different grades. Five lessons – five homework. It takes about an hour to check notebooks for just one course (so up to five hours total per day). And that time is just spent reviewing the run, marking errors with standard bars and check marks in the margins, and selectively checking the run against the State Data Sheet.
There is no time or mental resources left for poignant messages. Given the current workload, teachers are trying to optimize minimum testing requirements as much as possible. Teachers reserve thoughtful tests for quizzes and quizzes, not for homework. My colleagues, especially prone to boring conversations about devotion and other asceticism, may be annoyed by me, but this is the truth – human resources are limited, no one can always get over their heads.
And in this case automation does not aggravate anything, at least in the future. And if you approach the issue wisely, then the situation can be improved. You can certainly write a script to identify thoughtlessly written pieces. Teachers see them with the naked eye too, of course, but the burden of proof is still implicitly on them, which means unnecessary conflicts with students and parents. Then the machine refuses the job, let them handle it. As they say: Write to Sportloto.
They will say, but this will make education even more soulless. But who said that malicious cheaters who do not want to study and their scandalous parents should be treated wholeheartedly? What is the desire for this eternal position of sacrifice?
Maybe, on the contrary, clear machine algorithms can sober someone up and force them to come to their senses? And this is already some kind of benefit.
In general, the issue is not artificial intelligence, but how it is used. Machines are not the enemy of the human race. The enemies of the people are the people themselves. Without intelligence, machine brains are useless. And if the pot is cooking, then computer programs can be adjusted to benefit everyone.
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the position of the editors.