Meet the Rechargeable Humanoid Mark III Electric Teacher

Abstract

and the practical, little of this and little of that. Let me expand my thoughts on these three ideas. Teaching is helping another to develop and to learn. In the past ten years, there has been flood of writing on what teaching is, and what it is not, and what it should be. One can read fiction and nonfiction about teachers in an English boarding school (3), in an infant school in New Zealand (4, 5), in one-room school in Appalachia (6), and in ghetto schools in America's large cities (7-9). One of my earliest impressions of what teacher should be-all things to all children-is described in the short story Sing the Body Electric by Ray Bradbury. family in which the mother has died decides to buy robot to help rear the children. The mechanical perfection I sought at the beginning of my teaching experience is expressed in description of the robot who was to mother the children: ... for you who have worried over inattentive sitters, nurses who cannot be trusted with marked liquor bottles, and well-meaning Uncles and Aunts ... we have perfected the first humanoid-genre minicircuited, rechargeable AC-DC Mark V Electrical Grandmother. .... The Toy that is more than Toy, the Fantoccini Electrical Grandmother is built with loving precision to give the incredible precision of love to your children. The child at ease with the realities of the world and the even greater realities of the imagination is her aim. She is computerized to tutor in twelve languages simultaneously, capable of switching tongues in thousandth of second without pause, and has complete knowledge of the religious, artistic, and socio-political histories of the world seeded in her master hive. ... Above all, ... this human being, for human she seems, this embodiment in electro-intelligent facsimile of the humanities, will listen, know, tell, react, and love your children insofar as such great Objects, such fantastic Toys, can be said to Love, or can be imagined to Care. This Miraculous Companion, excited to the challenge of large world and small, inner Sea or Outer Universe, will transmit by touch and tell, said Miracles to your Needy [10: 155]. Many of the books I read at that time reinforced the description. Having given up, at least on conscious level, this view of teaching as being humanly impossible, I find it easier to appreciate simpler definitions. I especially like the one in The Rasberry Exercises: How To Start Your Own School and Make Book (11). The book offers collection of ideas and suggestions for one's own free school. Here is one definition of teacher from that book: A teacher is who accepts you completely as you are while still being model of more skilled, more conscious, more aware, and more living person (11: 18). Here is another definition-a less personalized description: teacher is a who, or situation which, helps another learn something more quickly and easily than he could by himself (12: 16). Note that the emphasis here is on the learner's learning rather than on the teacher's teaching. This idea surfaces basic assumption of mine. teacher sets the design of an educational environment, but at some point responsibility for learning must pass from teacher to pupil. Sometimes this shift of responsibility is frustrating to the teacher, who feels guilty about ab-