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I think teaching is one of the few roles that can't be replaced by AI. If you're a self-motivated learner, eager to gain new skills, then AI is perfect for you.

I think teaching is one of the few roles that can't be replaced by AI. If you're a self-motivated learner, eager to gain new skills, then AI is perfect for you. Having a virtual Feynman coach you through a Physics course is perfect. Most learners, the world over, are not self-motivated. The pandemic showed us exactly what children would prefer to do, when they don't have a physical teacher standing over them, which is bugger all. We send kids to school, in the hope they get some education, but the reality is that we use schools for free childcare while we work. If parents have to additionally monitor their child's learning, it breaks down pretty quickly. I see AI being more of a teaching assistant, rather than a replacement for teachers. Having been in the education game for over twenty five years, I know the difference in impact when comparing virtual learning to in-person training.

ilaksh 2y ago
AI certainly can't completely replace teachers, but the potential gains for personal tutoring from SOTA LLMs still seem enormous to me. And I'm not trying to make a general argument against in person training. But I think the details of how virtual learning happens matters quite a lot. AI can make it much more personalized and make tutoring relatively affordable. Don't you think?
- dinobones 2y ago
  AI has personally tutored me about obscure, deep linear algebra concepts. It's so great to get applied examples and be able to ask why/how something works, rather than reading a stuffy Wikipedia article or math textbook. It's been extremely effective for me, where reading a math textbook/wikipedia article seemed like too much effort, but a friendly conversation with my AI tutor was just fine.
  - brendoelfrendo 2y ago
    How can you bring yourself to trust the AI? Just yesterday a friend and I asked Chat-GPT a physics question, and for some reason his assistant asserted that the speed of light was 3,000 m/s, which is off by two orders of magnitude. We know that's wrong so we can tell the AI to do it again but right this time, but if it was explaining a concept we didn't already understand, I can't see how the output would be any more meaningful than asking a random stranger and trusting their response.
    - Auracle 2y ago
      Ever since the step(s) beyond ChatGPT 3.5 I haven't noticed any huge errors like that, personally. Are you sure you were on a new model? Also, how can you trust anyone? People are wrong. Teachers can be wrong. Web pages can be wrong. Books can be wrong. I think LLMs will probably soon be the least likely to be wrong out of any of those.
      - dinobones 2y ago
        Yeah exactly this, ChatGPT 4-o very rarely, if ever, hallucinates.
        aleph_minus_one 2y ago
        A very easy way to get basically every current AI model to hallucinate: 1. Ask a highly non-trivial research question (in particular from math) 2. Ask the AI for paper and textbook references on the topic At this point, already many of these references could be hallucinations. 3. If necessary ask the AI where in these papers/textbooks you can find explanations on the questions, and/or on which aspect of the question or research area the individual references focus.
        TeaBrain 2y ago
        This backs up what I mentioned in my other comment. My dad, an attorney, purchased both gpt-4o and Gemini Advanced to help write legal documents, which involves citing other legal cases. He says that he's found the legal cases that both models cite to almost always be completely fabricated.
      - Slyfox33 2y ago
        I just asked chatgpt: "comparing 9.9 and 9.11, which is larger?" and it responded: 9.11 is larger than 9.9. When comparing these two numbers: 9.9 can be written as 9.90 to have the same number of decimal places. 9.11 remains 9.11. Comparing digit by digit: The integer part (9) is the same for both. The first decimal place (9 vs. 1): 9 is larger. The second decimal place (0 vs. 1): 1 is larger, which makes 9.11 larger overall. So, 9.11 > 9.9.
  - danielmarkbruce 2y ago
    A likely truth no one wants talk about : LLMs will only help people who want to learn. Those people are likely already in very good shape in life. The amount of help from LLMs is likely very high for such people - as you note the ability to have a back and forth is very helpful. For 99% of the population, they aren't going to do this. It is what it is.
  - xanderlewis 2y ago
    > obscure, deep linear algebra concepts Could you give some examples?
- eldaisfish 2y ago
  A major part of the learning process is your peers. Learning is groups has benefits especially when you can bounce ideas off other humans. You cannot replace that with a machine.
  - ilaksh 2y ago
    Gotcha. So I guess the question is, can an AI run a Zoom meeting or interactive multiplayer learning game with a bunch of kids on it? Have to admit that might be a stretch.
onemoresoop 2y ago
AI can augment teachers though.
- surfingdino 2y ago
  How?
OmarShehata 2y ago
> Most learners, the world over, are not self-motivated this seems like a bizarre conclusion. In my experience, most people, the world over, are in fact self motivated. You won't see that if you have a very narrow definition of what is it that they're supposed to be learning kids aren't motivated to do boring math drills, because they don't see why it matters to their life (the real answer is: it does not, they are not wrong). I appreciated hearing this echoed by Conrad Wolfram in a recent PIMA episode: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-do-we-still-teach-people-to-calculate/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-do-we-still-teach-peopl...
- sillysaurusx 2y ago
  I think it might be worth considering whether you’ve had a privileged upbringing. Thinking back on it, the majority of people probably would have been content to play games all day. You could argue that that’s learning, but unfortunately it’s not the kind of learning that society tends to reward. I’ve heard that kids in upper middle class circles are totally different in this regard though. Maybe they want to do more on average.
  - pigscantfly 2y ago
    I think this perspective is belied by the vast over-subscription of free public education in places where it has previously been paid only[1] (at this point, mainly in Africa). It does seem like there is strong evidence that most children and parents recognize the value of education and are self-motivated to pursue it where it is accessible to them. I believe it follows that lowering cost and barriers to quality education will improve outcomes without a need to otherwise coerce participation. [1] See, most recently, Zambia
    - geodel 2y ago
      Not really. In my experience it is mostly effect of socio-legal pressure that kids can't be anywhere but school. In primary schools most kids are bored or miserable as hell while in school. And further parents keep pushing it because apparently education is key to future success / great career. For higher education there is charade of education to get jobs. So for office manager job where grade 8 would be enough, we have MBAs now because we all need advanced education to survive in global economy blah..blah.
zulban 2y ago
I imagine a world where a 19 year old takes a few courses in first aid, child psychology basics, and now they're a licensed "class supervisor". They aren't university educated but the AI is what offers personalized learning and expertise to the students. Most teachers today aren't experts anyway, we just pretend they are. So I'm not sure "replaced by AI" is the right way to frame the conversation. Instead, it may change education.
- meindnoch 2y ago
  Sounds fucking afwul to be frank.
  - zulban 2y ago
    Far better than many classrooms in North America today tho. Folks who disagree simply don't know anything about the huge waste of time that many kids are put through everyday.
- freejazz 2y ago
  > Most teachers today aren't experts anyway, we just pretend they are Experts in what, grade school math? Do you mean professors?
  - zulban 2y ago
    In anything. Like math, or math education. I was a teacher for years and studied education and I've seen some shit. The acceptance criteria for education degrees is often the lowest of any field in colleges/universities. The pay is extremely low. Great teachers exist, but often teaching is just a backup career for non-experts that don't know what else to do. Outside North America teachers are sometimes respected and paid as professionals like a doctor or lawyer. Here they're more likely the butt end of a joke. You don't need to be an expert in anything to be a teacher in NA, generally.
    - freejazz 2y ago
      Sorry, but you didn't really answer the question. What would they be in an expert in? Grade school math?
SubiculumCode 2y ago
Most highschool / gradeschool is being forced to sit in a chair being baby sat until 3PM each day, with no opportunity to select goals, and act towards them. My daughter transitioned to a Montessori jr high, and she went from enduring school to actively engaging in self-directed learning.
mym1990 2y ago
Weirdly enough I was not very curious in my schooling years, barely getting through classes. As I have grown up, I have so much more curiosity about the world and my willingness to actually learn has skyrocketed. I feel like this could be a great space for adults who are seeking to do the same. I always thought calculus would be daunting to learn(and I still do), but with AI tools I feel like I can approach it with a different mindset.
ugh123 2y ago
> I see AI being more of a teaching assistant, rather than a replacement for teachers That is exactly what he says in the tweet. I think the problem with traditional teaching, as in any skilled profession, is often in short supply and underpaid, not happy, and unable to keep up with 25+ kids in a class. The world needs orders of magnitude more teachers that are highly competent and more easily accessible. AI could massively scale high quality teaching with still a teacher in the loop.
lacy_tinpot 2y ago
Most people that are academically inclined are self motivated and have a desire to learn more. Most people aren't academically inclined so it follows that most people aren't academically self motivated. Therefore among those that are academically inclined it is important to provide them with all the tools necessary because they're the ones that will most likely excel in an academic environment. It is odd that the curriculum tends to accommodate people that aren't academically inclined at the expense of those that actually want to learn. People that aren't academically inclined should not be forced to learn, or at least forced only insofar as they're baseline literacy so that they function in today's world.
- bruce343434 2y ago
  > Most people that are academically inclined are self motivated and have a desire to learn more. Isn't that by definition? Most xes are x. > Most people aren't academically inclined Is that so? > It is odd that the curriculum tends to accommodate people that aren't academically inclined at the expense of those that actually want to learn. Well, if what you say is true, isn't it fair that the program is catered to the majority, who are apparently not academically inclined? For one size fits all mass education, catering to the largest mass is the best you can do. > People that aren't academically inclined should not be forced to learn, or at least forced only insofar as they're baseline literacy so that they function in today's world. Isn't that what the curriculum already accommodates then? Didn't you just say that?
  - lacy_tinpot 2y ago
    >Isn't that what the curriculum already accommodates then? Didn't you just say that? No. The current curriculum penalizes people that are academically incline. Fast track programs are difficult to access for example. >For one size fits all mass education, catering to the largest mass is the best you can do. Yes. But we now have other options. > Most people aren't academically inclined >>Is that so? As OP pointed out most people need someone to guide them and give them directions. This is because a lot of kids are not interested in learning and do "bugger all" without supervision. The kind of self-directed learning only benefits people that are already academically motivated. >Isn't that by definition? Most xes are x. Yes. This was in contrast to what OP was saying, which is "The pandemic showed us exactly what children would prefer to do, when they don't have a physical teacher standing over them, which is bugger all." This isn't true for students that are academically inclined. Only true for those that aren't academically inclined.
owenpalmer 2y ago
> I think teaching is one of the few roles that can't be replaced by AI So far, AI can't replace good teachers. But there aren't that many good teachers. In my experience, GPT4 is better at explaining advanced concepts than 70% of college professors. Unfortunately, education is often oriented around this horrifyingly archaic method of instruction, which prevents people from imagining what an AI oriented system could look like.
- red_admiral 2y ago
  I remember when the future was MOOCs. Let's get the top 30% (or 10% or whatever) of teachers to record high-quality videos, then everyone can have a top education. Even the rest of the professors might learn something! AI based education might or might not be "MOOCs 2.0". Even for the less good teachers, having a real human in the room is one of the features that lots of people appear to be ready to pay lots of college fees for.
- p1esk 2y ago
  His point is an AI teacher cannot force someone to learn, while a human teacher can (maybe).
renjimen 2y ago
I really agree. And I think it's likely your detractors have not stepped foot in a classroom lately. The issue is not engaging teachers. The teachers we have here in BC are excellent and love their subjects (my wife and many of my friends are teachers). The issue is behaviour, which has deteriorated significantly since COVID, though the changes have many other contributors. Try asking an AI to engage with 30 kids who are on their phones with earbuds in. You absolutely need a human as a teacher. That said, AI teaching could be a great teaching assistant.
- fritzo 2y ago
  AI would engage individually with each student via those earbuds
  - Neekerer 2y ago
    Kids would just take the ai earbuds out
  - renjimen 2y ago
    A large amount of engagement is reading and responding to body language. There are also no social ramifications of ignoring your laptop. Don't get me wrong, I think AI has a role in the future classroom, but that should be lead by professional educators used to dealing with children. There is also the social side to education that goes beyond course content. Teachers are not just there to dole out information, but to act as role models and part time parents.
    - criddell 2y ago
      I don’t think children are the initial target of this company, but I get what you are saying. The type of person who’s going to sign up for a course from this company are probably already autodidacts to some degree. If I were teaching sixth grade mathematics, I wouldn’t be too worried yet. If I were running one of the many mathematics academies that have popped up throughout a lot of more affluent ‘burbs, I’d be very worried.
elliotbnvl 2y ago
> The pandemic showed us exactly what children would prefer to do, when they don't have a physical teacher standing over them, which is bugger all. This is not true. The pandemic showed us exactly what children who are accustomed to being force-fed information and whose natural learning mechanisms and curiosity have been suppressed in favor of a generalized one-size-fits-all approach do when suddenly removed from the only learning paradigm they've ever been exposed to. My kids (not yet old enough for school) are extremely self-motivated to learn and explore the world around them. So am I, and that never went away over the course of a full homeschool education.
- dontlikeyoueith 2y ago
  The ignorance of this post is astounding. You and your kids are not typical of society at large.
  - elliotbnvl 2y ago
    Could you elaborate? I would like to be less ignorant, if possible. I went to public high school, public community college, and college. None of these experiences have changed my opinion, but rather informed it.
- infecto 2y ago
  Totally incorrect. The vast majority of the population are relying on schools and teachers to potty train, teach manners, instill excitement for learning and basically do everything a parent should be doing. Large number of kids have no real parent figure and thats from all types of backgrounds. We are not talking about kids who have strong households where learning and general manners are being taught.
  - elliotbnvl 2y ago
    I agree with you, but fail to see how our viewpoints are mutually exclusive?
    - 2y ago
Ylpertnodi 2y ago
>The pandemic showed us exactly what children would prefer to do, when they don't have a physical teacher standing over them, which is bugger all. Amend to: The pandemic showed us exactly what children's parents would prefer to do, when they don't have a physical teacher standing over their children, which is bugger all.
oldpersonintx 2y ago
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koonsolo 2y ago
I also noticed the material of an entire day can be learned or made in a few hours. So indeed I also realized it's mainly daycare with a bit of, or slow learning.
toomuchtodo 2y ago
https://www.khanmigo.ai/ https://www.khanmigo.ai/ is adopting this ideal, and I would agree you with your perspective. It's a tutor, not a teacher. > Khanmigo is an AI-powered personal tutor and teaching assistant from trusted education nonprofit Khan Academy.
silverlake 2y ago
I worked on online learning for a bit. Turns out people are willing to pay for the inconvenience of in-person learning, even flying to another location. It's the only way most people can focus on a topic. Otherwise, work, kids, life interrupts and they can't stay on track. Replit's 100 Days of Python says only 0.4% of those who complete day 1 finish day 100.
fragmede 2y ago
yeah. When trying to learn, say algebra and getting stuck on a problem, what's better for learning? staring at the problem until you get bored and wander off, looking at the back of the book for the answer and then maybe going back to figure out why, or individual instruction where you're able to ask someone who knows that they're doing about why you're stuck, and have them give you hints until you get unstuck, and then give you another, similar, problem for you to work through?
dimal 2y ago
> I see AI being more of a teaching assistant, rather than a replacement for teachers. That’s what he announced he’s doing. Creating an assistant, not a replacement.
- surfingdino 2y ago
  Except what you'll get will be an all-seeing, spying, hallucinating LLM.
andrepd 2y ago
> Having a virtual Feynman coach you through a Physics course is perfect. So would fusion power, unfortunately such a thing does not exist yet, nor close to.
logifail 2y ago
> We send kids to school, in the hope they get some education, but the reality is that we use schools for free childcare while we work We also send kids to school to learn social skills they can't learn by themselves. My kids sometimes watch science shows (on TV as well as online) and tell me all kinds of fascinating facts about black holes and the human immune system and {insert_huge_list_of_stuff_I_don't_fully_understand}. That's the easy bit. "Getting along with other people" isn't something you learn ... by yourself.
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  May I suggest that the kids of HN commentators are being sampled from a very different distribution than the kids of the general public.
Lichtso 2y ago
If the technology is truly as capable as humans in many domains (and that might still take a while), it will not matter anymore whether it is a good teacher or not. The need for (and thus value of) human labor will depreciate and so will its "supply chain" the education sector. > hope they get some education, but the reality is that we use schools for free childcare Exactly, teachers will be less and less pedagogs and more and more wardens.
afarviral 2y ago
But how to harness "Bugger all" so that it results in educated students? Because my understanding is everyone likes to do stuff.. no one really does nothing, but often unproductive/consumptive things if not channelled.
awahab92 2y ago
i think kids would be self-motivated with the right system. I got a lot more motivated to learn when i learned programming. during the pandemic, the world was in shock, so of course kids are going to play video games when their parents are anxious and filled with cabin-feever.
- hackinthebochs 2y ago
  I do wish people on this website would stop using themselves as an example of the median anything.
  - aleph_minus_one 2y ago
    > I do wish people on this website would stop using themselves as an example of the median anything. HN readers, in my opinion, are a decent median sample of the group of "self-motivated learners". :-)
yaj54 2y ago
Kids, when given the choice, will choose to play games (of many different kinds) above just about anything else. The future of education is the playful gamification of relevant skills, knowledge, and behaviors.
- toofy 2y ago
  kids will choose many different kinds of activities at any given time.a lot of kids really don’t like games, some do, some don’t. i’m not trying to be pedantic, but anytime someone implies a human, particularly a kid will be at all predictable shows an incredible lack of understanding of people. the vast array of moods, time of day, quality of sleep the night before, are they hungry, mood of the parents when they drove them to school, how did their school/work day go, how was their social day, and on and on and on. again, apologies, i’m not trying to be pedantic but i think in this particular topic it reeeeaalllly matters.
  - yaj54 2y ago
    My broad sweeping generalization was primarily meant as a counterpoint to this from parent comment: "The pandemic showed us exactly what children would prefer to do, when they don't have a physical teacher standing over them, which is bugger all." My point is more that kids, when left to their own devices (with basic needs met), will find ways to occupy themselves that they find interesting that are not outcome oriented (I call this playing). And I personally have never met a kid that didn't like playing in some form or another, though the form of playing is highly, highly individualized.
    - signatoremo 2y ago
      Is reading playing? Because most kids I’ve seen enjoy reading.
  - cha42 2y ago
    I don't understand at all my kids choices in game or way of spending time at all It seems completely random but in a coherent way. It is wonderful. Anyway, you are right and not pedantic at all.
tomcam 2y ago
Disagree slightly. I think AI can be used to generate average quality course material, which may be useful to below average teachers, or good teachers thrown into a subject they haven’t taught yet. Obviously someone like Andrej will totally crush it.
renonce 2y ago
Even as a self-motivated learner I fail to see the bigger impact of AI. For a “virtual Feynman” I would prefer the online video courses and books which exist without AI. The best I expect an AI to do is to answer my questions and confirm my understandings. At AI’s current state I can use it as a better search engine but due to hallucinations I can’t expect reliable answers yet.
- danielmarkbruce 2y ago
  Using gpt-4o?
  - renonce 2y ago
    Asking it “3.11和3.8哪个大” (meaning “Which one is larger, 3.11 or 3.8?” in Chinese) and it answers 3.11 more than half of the time. I assume it’s because Python 3.11 is larger than Python 3.8. While it does work in its native language English, this failure doesn’t give me much confidence in its reliability, as we don’t know why it works in one language but not the other yet.
    - danielmarkbruce 2y ago
      Uh, I think people have a good idea why it doesn't work as well in other languages.
skhunted 2y ago
There is an interesting physics education experiment. A random group of students are shown a lecture on a topic and take a quiz after watching the video. The students rate the lecture. Repeat with a different lecture on the same topic. The students did worse with the higher rated lecture. There’s teaching students like. There’s teaching where students learn. Sometimes the two intersect. Will an AI education company optimize one that students enjoy or one where they learn better?
- ryanjamurphy 2y ago
  Thanks for this comment. I think I found the article: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1821936116 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1821936116 Layperson coverage: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/09/study-shows-that-students-learn-more-when-taking-part-in-classrooms-that-employ-active-learning-strategies/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/09/study-shows-t...
azhenley 2y ago
We just published a paper on this topic. I wrote a summary of it, “Learning to code with and without AI”. https://austinhenley.com/blog/learningwithai.html https://austinhenley.com/blog/learningwithai.html
- blackbear_ 2y ago
  What is the baseline performance of the LLM in solving those programming tasks? And did you test the performance of the students in the Codex group at the end of the course without allowing them to use Codex? Essentially I'm asking how can you conclude that these students didn't just learn to call a LLM, but actually learned to code independently?
pessimizer 2y ago
I don't think this is true at all. People failed to learn during covid because the technology is bad. I don't think most people are motivated very much at all by the disappointment of some stranger standing over them. I don't even see it as a desirable aspect of someone's personality that they can be extrinsically motivated by the approval of strangers. What a teacher provides is a sometimes customized, sometimes flexible schedule, that (sometimes) pays individual attention to what aspects of a concept a student is falling behind at, and (sometimes) comes up with personal recommendations and alternative approaches to break down a student's involuntary resistance to a concept. This might be doable with A.I.. It's not doable with actual teaching anymore because class sizes are too large. A.I. will be cheaper. And I'm not saying that teaching is so simple that A.I. can do it, I'm saying that teaching is so complicated that it might be that only A.I. is sufficient to largely replace it. I think that what I'm arguing against is that the idea that teachers could be replaced by glowering scarecrows, or fur-covered wire armatures like they once used in experiments to replace animals' mothers. I don't think that teachers make as good parents as parents do teachers. I don't think most people are mostly motivated by the approval or judgement of their teachers. What people need is constant, helpful, personalized guidance, and that is very expensive to get from employees.
unraveller 2y ago
>teaching ... can't be replaced by AI. Teaching is not the end goal of education though, the educated student is. Or so I was taught. Part of the reason why teaching is considered noble is because it is an act of assured replacement, inspiring not dependency imparting skills of self-motivation and will power.
dyauspitr 2y ago
Completely disagree. ChatGPT has taught me more than I could ever learn from any lecture and I have a doctorate. A moderately motivated student will do wonders with AI. For instance, I’ve had trouble understanding exactly how heat pumps worked. Sure I knew the basic concepts of condensation and evaporation but not the nuances of pressures and boiling points at various stages. I asked chatGPT to explain it to me from the perspective of the refrigerant. It started with “I am R-134a, a refrigerant just leaving the evaporator…”, and proceeded to give me the most thorough understanding of heat pumps I could imagine, complete with working pressures, boiling points, pressure differentials at the escape valve etc. Follow up questions led me down interesting paths where it came up with a brilliant comparison to quantify the greenhouse potential of the refrigerant R22 ie 1 pound of R22 has the same greenhouse potential as a human being breathing for 787 days in a row.
fsndz 2y ago
When it comes to AI, self learning is dope, and Lycee AI is a pioneer: https://www.lycee.ai/courses/91b8b189-729a-471a-8ae1-717033c77eb5/chapters/a8494d55-a5f2-4e99-a0d4-8a79549c82ad https://www.lycee.ai/courses/91b8b189-729a-471a-8ae1-717033c...
obastani 2y ago
This is exactly the problem we have found in our research on generative AI for education [1]. We ran a pilot in a large high school in collaboration with math teachers, and found that students basically copy answers from ChatGPT, resulting in worse performance compared to students not given ChatGPT. If students don't want to learn, ChatGPT isn't going to fix anything. [1] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4895486 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4895486
- verdverm 2y ago
  You are just giving them ChatGPT with a bit of prompt engineering, and evaluating them on math problems, which we know LLMs make errors on because they are not calculators. You aren't putting in the effort needed to build a real tutor and learning assistant. I would not extrapolate from these results There are also a lot of things that can come in before you build a full on tutor. One example is being able to tailor word problems (transform the nouns) to subjects interesting to the particular student. They could also be used to help understand where students are struggling. We are still at the early phases of useful AI, optimism is more appreciated, especially as contemporary times have become so pessimistic Sal Khan provides a more optimistic take and demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJP5GqnTrNo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJP5GqnTrNo
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KerryJones 2y ago
> Most learners, the world over, are not self-motivated This is the exact opposite conclusion and methodology of Maria Montessori (and her schools with the same name). Children are naturally curious and want to learn, but they may not want to use a poor education system designed to mark grades in a hyper specific focus.
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  the only people i knew growing up who went to montessori we’re very affluent white kids with hyper involved parents. even when given access to school choice, less affluent and minority parents do not choose montessori and there is absolutely a reason for that.
  - KerryJones 2y ago
    Is the reason because montessori schools are often high-priced? Because that's definitely true (and you can easily say it's a privilege to attend one). That doesn't, however, mean the methodologies don't work or don't apply. You can study the methods in any of her ~20ish books, or the more modernized recaps of them.
627467 2y ago
The teacher/tutor certainly won't be replaced by an AI. But those we call 'teachers' nowadays - possibly even for decades - are struggling glorified janitors because society treats schools as daycare. It's understandable that 9-6 parents need daycare. But why do we keep confusing daycaring with teaching? And why do we expect teachers to be perfect at both roles? And why all 30 students in the class should focus exactly on the same aspect of education simultaneously? That's the main issue with 'teaching'.

ilaksh 2y ago

AI certainly can't completely replace teachers, but the potential gains for personal tutoring from SOTA LLMs still seem enormous to me. And I'm not trying to make a general argument against in person training. But I think the details of how virtual learning happens matters quite a lot. AI can make it much more personalized and make tutoring relatively affordable. Don't you think?

dinobones 2y ago
AI has personally tutored me about obscure, deep linear algebra concepts. It's so great to get applied examples and be able to ask why/how something works, rather than reading a stuffy Wikipedia article or math textbook. It's been extremely effective for me, where reading a math textbook/wikipedia article seemed like too much effort, but a friendly conversation with my AI tutor was just fine.
- brendoelfrendo 2y ago
  How can you bring yourself to trust the AI? Just yesterday a friend and I asked Chat-GPT a physics question, and for some reason his assistant asserted that the speed of light was 3,000 m/s, which is off by two orders of magnitude. We know that's wrong so we can tell the AI to do it again but right this time, but if it was explaining a concept we didn't already understand, I can't see how the output would be any more meaningful than asking a random stranger and trusting their response.
  - Auracle 2y ago
    Ever since the step(s) beyond ChatGPT 3.5 I haven't noticed any huge errors like that, personally. Are you sure you were on a new model? Also, how can you trust anyone? People are wrong. Teachers can be wrong. Web pages can be wrong. Books can be wrong. I think LLMs will probably soon be the least likely to be wrong out of any of those.
    - dinobones 2y ago
      Yeah exactly this, ChatGPT 4-o very rarely, if ever, hallucinates.
      - aleph_minus_one 2y ago
        A very easy way to get basically every current AI model to hallucinate: 1. Ask a highly non-trivial research question (in particular from math) 2. Ask the AI for paper and textbook references on the topic At this point, already many of these references could be hallucinations. 3. If necessary ask the AI where in these papers/textbooks you can find explanations on the questions, and/or on which aspect of the question or research area the individual references focus.
        TeaBrain 2y ago
        This backs up what I mentioned in my other comment. My dad, an attorney, purchased both gpt-4o and Gemini Advanced to help write legal documents, which involves citing other legal cases. He says that he's found the legal cases that both models cite to almost always be completely fabricated.
    - Slyfox33 2y ago
      I just asked chatgpt: "comparing 9.9 and 9.11, which is larger?" and it responded: 9.11 is larger than 9.9. When comparing these two numbers: 9.9 can be written as 9.90 to have the same number of decimal places. 9.11 remains 9.11. Comparing digit by digit: The integer part (9) is the same for both. The first decimal place (9 vs. 1): 9 is larger. The second decimal place (0 vs. 1): 1 is larger, which makes 9.11 larger overall. So, 9.11 > 9.9.
- danielmarkbruce 2y ago
  A likely truth no one wants talk about : LLMs will only help people who want to learn. Those people are likely already in very good shape in life. The amount of help from LLMs is likely very high for such people - as you note the ability to have a back and forth is very helpful. For 99% of the population, they aren't going to do this. It is what it is.
- xanderlewis 2y ago
  > obscure, deep linear algebra concepts Could you give some examples?
eldaisfish 2y ago
A major part of the learning process is your peers. Learning is groups has benefits especially when you can bounce ideas off other humans. You cannot replace that with a machine.
- ilaksh 2y ago
  Gotcha. So I guess the question is, can an AI run a Zoom meeting or interactive multiplayer learning game with a bunch of kids on it? Have to admit that might be a stretch.

onemoresoop 2y ago

AI can augment teachers though.

surfingdino 2y ago
How?

OmarShehata 2y ago

> Most learners, the world over, are not self-motivated this seems like a bizarre conclusion. In my experience, most people, the world over, are in fact self motivated. You won't see that if you have a very narrow definition of what is it that they're supposed to be learning kids aren't motivated to do boring math drills, because they don't see why it matters to their life (the real answer is: it does not, they are not wrong). I appreciated hearing this echoed by Conrad Wolfram in a recent PIMA episode: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-do-we-still-teach-people-to-calculate/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-do-we-still-teach-peopl...

sillysaurusx 2y ago
I think it might be worth considering whether you’ve had a privileged upbringing. Thinking back on it, the majority of people probably would have been content to play games all day. You could argue that that’s learning, but unfortunately it’s not the kind of learning that society tends to reward. I’ve heard that kids in upper middle class circles are totally different in this regard though. Maybe they want to do more on average.
- pigscantfly 2y ago
  I think this perspective is belied by the vast over-subscription of free public education in places where it has previously been paid only[1] (at this point, mainly in Africa). It does seem like there is strong evidence that most children and parents recognize the value of education and are self-motivated to pursue it where it is accessible to them. I believe it follows that lowering cost and barriers to quality education will improve outcomes without a need to otherwise coerce participation. [1] See, most recently, Zambia
  - geodel 2y ago
    Not really. In my experience it is mostly effect of socio-legal pressure that kids can't be anywhere but school. In primary schools most kids are bored or miserable as hell while in school. And further parents keep pushing it because apparently education is key to future success / great career. For higher education there is charade of education to get jobs. So for office manager job where grade 8 would be enough, we have MBAs now because we all need advanced education to survive in global economy blah..blah.

zulban 2y ago

I imagine a world where a 19 year old takes a few courses in first aid, child psychology basics, and now they're a licensed "class supervisor". They aren't university educated but the AI is what offers personalized learning and expertise to the students. Most teachers today aren't experts anyway, we just pretend they are. So I'm not sure "replaced by AI" is the right way to frame the conversation. Instead, it may change education.

meindnoch 2y ago
Sounds fucking afwul to be frank.
- zulban 2y ago
  Far better than many classrooms in North America today tho. Folks who disagree simply don't know anything about the huge waste of time that many kids are put through everyday.
freejazz 2y ago
> Most teachers today aren't experts anyway, we just pretend they are Experts in what, grade school math? Do you mean professors?
- zulban 2y ago
  In anything. Like math, or math education. I was a teacher for years and studied education and I've seen some shit. The acceptance criteria for education degrees is often the lowest of any field in colleges/universities. The pay is extremely low. Great teachers exist, but often teaching is just a backup career for non-experts that don't know what else to do. Outside North America teachers are sometimes respected and paid as professionals like a doctor or lawyer. Here they're more likely the butt end of a joke. You don't need to be an expert in anything to be a teacher in NA, generally.
  - freejazz 2y ago
    Sorry, but you didn't really answer the question. What would they be in an expert in? Grade school math?

SubiculumCode 2y ago

Most highschool / gradeschool is being forced to sit in a chair being baby sat until 3PM each day, with no opportunity to select goals, and act towards them. My daughter transitioned to a Montessori jr high, and she went from enduring school to actively engaging in self-directed learning.

mym1990 2y ago

Weirdly enough I was not very curious in my schooling years, barely getting through classes. As I have grown up, I have so much more curiosity about the world and my willingness to actually learn has skyrocketed. I feel like this could be a great space for adults who are seeking to do the same. I always thought calculus would be daunting to learn(and I still do), but with AI tools I feel like I can approach it with a different mindset.

ugh123 2y ago

> I see AI being more of a teaching assistant, rather than a replacement for teachers That is exactly what he says in the tweet. I think the problem with traditional teaching, as in any skilled profession, is often in short supply and underpaid, not happy, and unable to keep up with 25+ kids in a class. The world needs orders of magnitude more teachers that are highly competent and more easily accessible. AI could massively scale high quality teaching with still a teacher in the loop.

lacy_tinpot 2y ago

Most people that are academically inclined are self motivated and have a desire to learn more. Most people aren't academically inclined so it follows that most people aren't academically self motivated. Therefore among those that are academically inclined it is important to provide them with all the tools necessary because they're the ones that will most likely excel in an academic environment. It is odd that the curriculum tends to accommodate people that aren't academically inclined at the expense of those that actually want to learn. People that aren't academically inclined should not be forced to learn, or at least forced only insofar as they're baseline literacy so that they function in today's world.

bruce343434 2y ago
> Most people that are academically inclined are self motivated and have a desire to learn more. Isn't that by definition? Most xes are x. > Most people aren't academically inclined Is that so? > It is odd that the curriculum tends to accommodate people that aren't academically inclined at the expense of those that actually want to learn. Well, if what you say is true, isn't it fair that the program is catered to the majority, who are apparently not academically inclined? For one size fits all mass education, catering to the largest mass is the best you can do. > People that aren't academically inclined should not be forced to learn, or at least forced only insofar as they're baseline literacy so that they function in today's world. Isn't that what the curriculum already accommodates then? Didn't you just say that?
- lacy_tinpot 2y ago
  >Isn't that what the curriculum already accommodates then? Didn't you just say that? No. The current curriculum penalizes people that are academically incline. Fast track programs are difficult to access for example. >For one size fits all mass education, catering to the largest mass is the best you can do. Yes. But we now have other options. > Most people aren't academically inclined >>Is that so? As OP pointed out most people need someone to guide them and give them directions. This is because a lot of kids are not interested in learning and do "bugger all" without supervision. The kind of self-directed learning only benefits people that are already academically motivated. >Isn't that by definition? Most xes are x. Yes. This was in contrast to what OP was saying, which is "The pandemic showed us exactly what children would prefer to do, when they don't have a physical teacher standing over them, which is bugger all." This isn't true for students that are academically inclined. Only true for those that aren't academically inclined.

owenpalmer 2y ago

> I think teaching is one of the few roles that can't be replaced by AI So far, AI can't replace good teachers. But there aren't that many good teachers. In my experience, GPT4 is better at explaining advanced concepts than 70% of college professors. Unfortunately, education is often oriented around this horrifyingly archaic method of instruction, which prevents people from imagining what an AI oriented system could look like.

red_admiral 2y ago
I remember when the future was MOOCs. Let's get the top 30% (or 10% or whatever) of teachers to record high-quality videos, then everyone can have a top education. Even the rest of the professors might learn something! AI based education might or might not be "MOOCs 2.0". Even for the less good teachers, having a real human in the room is one of the features that lots of people appear to be ready to pay lots of college fees for.
p1esk 2y ago
His point is an AI teacher cannot force someone to learn, while a human teacher can (maybe).

renjimen 2y ago

I really agree. And I think it's likely your detractors have not stepped foot in a classroom lately. The issue is not engaging teachers. The teachers we have here in BC are excellent and love their subjects (my wife and many of my friends are teachers). The issue is behaviour, which has deteriorated significantly since COVID, though the changes have many other contributors. Try asking an AI to engage with 30 kids who are on their phones with earbuds in. You absolutely need a human as a teacher. That said, AI teaching could be a great teaching assistant.

fritzo 2y ago
AI would engage individually with each student via those earbuds
- Neekerer 2y ago
  Kids would just take the ai earbuds out
- renjimen 2y ago
  A large amount of engagement is reading and responding to body language. There are also no social ramifications of ignoring your laptop. Don't get me wrong, I think AI has a role in the future classroom, but that should be lead by professional educators used to dealing with children. There is also the social side to education that goes beyond course content. Teachers are not just there to dole out information, but to act as role models and part time parents.
  - criddell 2y ago
    I don’t think children are the initial target of this company, but I get what you are saying. The type of person who’s going to sign up for a course from this company are probably already autodidacts to some degree. If I were teaching sixth grade mathematics, I wouldn’t be too worried yet. If I were running one of the many mathematics academies that have popped up throughout a lot of more affluent ‘burbs, I’d be very worried.

elliotbnvl 2y ago

> The pandemic showed us exactly what children would prefer to do, when they don't have a physical teacher standing over them, which is bugger all. This is not true. The pandemic showed us exactly what children who are accustomed to being force-fed information and whose natural learning mechanisms and curiosity have been suppressed in favor of a generalized one-size-fits-all approach do when suddenly removed from the only learning paradigm they've ever been exposed to. My kids (not yet old enough for school) are extremely self-motivated to learn and explore the world around them. So am I, and that never went away over the course of a full homeschool education.

dontlikeyoueith 2y ago
The ignorance of this post is astounding. You and your kids are not typical of society at large.
- elliotbnvl 2y ago
  Could you elaborate? I would like to be less ignorant, if possible. I went to public high school, public community college, and college. None of these experiences have changed my opinion, but rather informed it.
infecto 2y ago
Totally incorrect. The vast majority of the population are relying on schools and teachers to potty train, teach manners, instill excitement for learning and basically do everything a parent should be doing. Large number of kids have no real parent figure and thats from all types of backgrounds. We are not talking about kids who have strong households where learning and general manners are being taught.
- elliotbnvl 2y ago
  I agree with you, but fail to see how our viewpoints are mutually exclusive?
  - 2y ago

Ylpertnodi 2y ago

>The pandemic showed us exactly what children would prefer to do, when they don't have a physical teacher standing over them, which is bugger all. Amend to: The pandemic showed us exactly what children's parents would prefer to do, when they don't have a physical teacher standing over their children, which is bugger all.

oldpersonintx 2y ago

[dead]

koonsolo 2y ago

I also noticed the material of an entire day can be learned or made in a few hours. So indeed I also realized it's mainly daycare with a bit of, or slow learning.

toomuchtodo 2y ago

https://www.khanmigo.ai/ https://www.khanmigo.ai/ is adopting this ideal, and I would agree you with your perspective. It's a tutor, not a teacher. > Khanmigo is an AI-powered personal tutor and teaching assistant from trusted education nonprofit Khan Academy.

silverlake 2y ago

I worked on online learning for a bit. Turns out people are willing to pay for the inconvenience of in-person learning, even flying to another location. It's the only way most people can focus on a topic. Otherwise, work, kids, life interrupts and they can't stay on track. Replit's 100 Days of Python says only 0.4% of those who complete day 1 finish day 100.

fragmede 2y ago

yeah. When trying to learn, say algebra and getting stuck on a problem, what's better for learning? staring at the problem until you get bored and wander off, looking at the back of the book for the answer and then maybe going back to figure out why, or individual instruction where you're able to ask someone who knows that they're doing about why you're stuck, and have them give you hints until you get unstuck, and then give you another, similar, problem for you to work through?

dimal 2y ago

> I see AI being more of a teaching assistant, rather than a replacement for teachers. That’s what he announced he’s doing. Creating an assistant, not a replacement.

surfingdino 2y ago
Except what you'll get will be an all-seeing, spying, hallucinating LLM.

andrepd 2y ago

> Having a virtual Feynman coach you through a Physics course is perfect. So would fusion power, unfortunately such a thing does not exist yet, nor close to.

logifail 2y ago

> We send kids to school, in the hope they get some education, but the reality is that we use schools for free childcare while we work We also send kids to school to learn social skills they can't learn by themselves. My kids sometimes watch science shows (on TV as well as online) and tell me all kinds of fascinating facts about black holes and the human immune system and {insert_huge_list_of_stuff_I_don't_fully_understand}. That's the easy bit. "Getting along with other people" isn't something you learn ... by yourself.

whimsicalism 2y ago
May I suggest that the kids of HN commentators are being sampled from a very different distribution than the kids of the general public.

Lichtso 2y ago

If the technology is truly as capable as humans in many domains (and that might still take a while), it will not matter anymore whether it is a good teacher or not. The need for (and thus value of) human labor will depreciate and so will its "supply chain" the education sector. > hope they get some education, but the reality is that we use schools for free childcare Exactly, teachers will be less and less pedagogs and more and more wardens.

afarviral 2y ago

But how to harness "Bugger all" so that it results in educated students? Because my understanding is everyone likes to do stuff.. no one really does nothing, but often unproductive/consumptive things if not channelled.

awahab92 2y ago

i think kids would be self-motivated with the right system. I got a lot more motivated to learn when i learned programming. during the pandemic, the world was in shock, so of course kids are going to play video games when their parents are anxious and filled with cabin-feever.

hackinthebochs 2y ago
I do wish people on this website would stop using themselves as an example of the median anything.
- aleph_minus_one 2y ago
  > I do wish people on this website would stop using themselves as an example of the median anything. HN readers, in my opinion, are a decent median sample of the group of "self-motivated learners". :-)

yaj54 2y ago

Kids, when given the choice, will choose to play games (of many different kinds) above just about anything else. The future of education is the playful gamification of relevant skills, knowledge, and behaviors.

toofy 2y ago
kids will choose many different kinds of activities at any given time.a lot of kids really don’t like games, some do, some don’t. i’m not trying to be pedantic, but anytime someone implies a human, particularly a kid will be at all predictable shows an incredible lack of understanding of people. the vast array of moods, time of day, quality of sleep the night before, are they hungry, mood of the parents when they drove them to school, how did their school/work day go, how was their social day, and on and on and on. again, apologies, i’m not trying to be pedantic but i think in this particular topic it reeeeaalllly matters.
- yaj54 2y ago
  My broad sweeping generalization was primarily meant as a counterpoint to this from parent comment: "The pandemic showed us exactly what children would prefer to do, when they don't have a physical teacher standing over them, which is bugger all." My point is more that kids, when left to their own devices (with basic needs met), will find ways to occupy themselves that they find interesting that are not outcome oriented (I call this playing). And I personally have never met a kid that didn't like playing in some form or another, though the form of playing is highly, highly individualized.
  - signatoremo 2y ago
    Is reading playing? Because most kids I’ve seen enjoy reading.
- cha42 2y ago
  I don't understand at all my kids choices in game or way of spending time at all It seems completely random but in a coherent way. It is wonderful. Anyway, you are right and not pedantic at all.

tomcam 2y ago

Disagree slightly. I think AI can be used to generate average quality course material, which may be useful to below average teachers, or good teachers thrown into a subject they haven’t taught yet. Obviously someone like Andrej will totally crush it.

renonce 2y ago

Even as a self-motivated learner I fail to see the bigger impact of AI. For a “virtual Feynman” I would prefer the online video courses and books which exist without AI. The best I expect an AI to do is to answer my questions and confirm my understandings. At AI’s current state I can use it as a better search engine but due to hallucinations I can’t expect reliable answers yet.

danielmarkbruce 2y ago
Using gpt-4o?
- renonce 2y ago
  Asking it “3.11和3.8哪个大” (meaning “Which one is larger, 3.11 or 3.8?” in Chinese) and it answers 3.11 more than half of the time. I assume it’s because Python 3.11 is larger than Python 3.8. While it does work in its native language English, this failure doesn’t give me much confidence in its reliability, as we don’t know why it works in one language but not the other yet.
  - danielmarkbruce 2y ago
    Uh, I think people have a good idea why it doesn't work as well in other languages.

skhunted 2y ago

There is an interesting physics education experiment. A random group of students are shown a lecture on a topic and take a quiz after watching the video. The students rate the lecture. Repeat with a different lecture on the same topic. The students did worse with the higher rated lecture. There’s teaching students like. There’s teaching where students learn. Sometimes the two intersect. Will an AI education company optimize one that students enjoy or one where they learn better?

ryanjamurphy 2y ago
Thanks for this comment. I think I found the article: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1821936116 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1821936116 Layperson coverage: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/09/study-shows-that-students-learn-more-when-taking-part-in-classrooms-that-employ-active-learning-strategies/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/09/study-shows-t...

azhenley 2y ago

We just published a paper on this topic. I wrote a summary of it, “Learning to code with and without AI”. https://austinhenley.com/blog/learningwithai.html https://austinhenley.com/blog/learningwithai.html

blackbear_ 2y ago
What is the baseline performance of the LLM in solving those programming tasks? And did you test the performance of the students in the Codex group at the end of the course without allowing them to use Codex? Essentially I'm asking how can you conclude that these students didn't just learn to call a LLM, but actually learned to code independently?

pessimizer 2y ago

I don't think this is true at all. People failed to learn during covid because the technology is bad. I don't think most people are motivated very much at all by the disappointment of some stranger standing over them. I don't even see it as a desirable aspect of someone's personality that they can be extrinsically motivated by the approval of strangers. What a teacher provides is a sometimes customized, sometimes flexible schedule, that (sometimes) pays individual attention to what aspects of a concept a student is falling behind at, and (sometimes) comes up with personal recommendations and alternative approaches to break down a student's involuntary resistance to a concept. This might be doable with A.I.. It's not doable with actual teaching anymore because class sizes are too large. A.I. will be cheaper. And I'm not saying that teaching is so simple that A.I. can do it, I'm saying that teaching is so complicated that it might be that only A.I. is sufficient to largely replace it. I think that what I'm arguing against is that the idea that teachers could be replaced by glowering scarecrows, or fur-covered wire armatures like they once used in experiments to replace animals' mothers. I don't think that teachers make as good parents as parents do teachers. I don't think most people are mostly motivated by the approval or judgement of their teachers. What people need is constant, helpful, personalized guidance, and that is very expensive to get from employees.

unraveller 2y ago

>teaching ... can't be replaced by AI. Teaching is not the end goal of education though, the educated student is. Or so I was taught. Part of the reason why teaching is considered noble is because it is an act of assured replacement, inspiring not dependency imparting skills of self-motivation and will power.

dyauspitr 2y ago

Completely disagree. ChatGPT has taught me more than I could ever learn from any lecture and I have a doctorate. A moderately motivated student will do wonders with AI. For instance, I’ve had trouble understanding exactly how heat pumps worked. Sure I knew the basic concepts of condensation and evaporation but not the nuances of pressures and boiling points at various stages. I asked chatGPT to explain it to me from the perspective of the refrigerant. It started with “I am R-134a, a refrigerant just leaving the evaporator…”, and proceeded to give me the most thorough understanding of heat pumps I could imagine, complete with working pressures, boiling points, pressure differentials at the escape valve etc. Follow up questions led me down interesting paths where it came up with a brilliant comparison to quantify the greenhouse potential of the refrigerant R22 ie 1 pound of R22 has the same greenhouse potential as a human being breathing for 787 days in a row.

fsndz 2y ago

When it comes to AI, self learning is dope, and Lycee AI is a pioneer: https://www.lycee.ai/courses/91b8b189-729a-471a-8ae1-717033c77eb5/chapters/a8494d55-a5f2-4e99-a0d4-8a79549c82ad https://www.lycee.ai/courses/91b8b189-729a-471a-8ae1-717033c...

obastani 2y ago

This is exactly the problem we have found in our research on generative AI for education [1]. We ran a pilot in a large high school in collaboration with math teachers, and found that students basically copy answers from ChatGPT, resulting in worse performance compared to students not given ChatGPT. If students don't want to learn, ChatGPT isn't going to fix anything. [1] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4895486 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4895486

verdverm 2y ago
You are just giving them ChatGPT with a bit of prompt engineering, and evaluating them on math problems, which we know LLMs make errors on because they are not calculators. You aren't putting in the effort needed to build a real tutor and learning assistant. I would not extrapolate from these results There are also a lot of things that can come in before you build a full on tutor. One example is being able to tailor word problems (transform the nouns) to subjects interesting to the particular student. They could also be used to help understand where students are struggling. We are still at the early phases of useful AI, optimism is more appreciated, especially as contemporary times have become so pessimistic Sal Khan provides a more optimistic take and demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJP5GqnTrNo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJP5GqnTrNo

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KerryJones 2y ago

> Most learners, the world over, are not self-motivated This is the exact opposite conclusion and methodology of Maria Montessori (and her schools with the same name). Children are naturally curious and want to learn, but they may not want to use a poor education system designed to mark grades in a hyper specific focus.

whimsicalism 2y ago
the only people i knew growing up who went to montessori we’re very affluent white kids with hyper involved parents. even when given access to school choice, less affluent and minority parents do not choose montessori and there is absolutely a reason for that.
- KerryJones 2y ago
  Is the reason because montessori schools are often high-priced? Because that's definitely true (and you can easily say it's a privilege to attend one). That doesn't, however, mean the methodologies don't work or don't apply. You can study the methods in any of her ~20ish books, or the more modernized recaps of them.

627467 2y ago

The teacher/tutor certainly won't be replaced by an AI. But those we call 'teachers' nowadays - possibly even for decades - are struggling glorified janitors because society treats schools as daycare. It's understandable that 9-6 parents need daycare. But why do we keep confusing daycaring with teaching? And why do we expect teachers to be perfect at both roles? And why all 30 students in the class should focus exactly on the same aspect of education simultaneously? That's the main issue with 'teaching'.