The belief that technology can automate education and replace teachers is pervasive. Framed in calls for greater efficiency, this belief is present in today’s educational innovations, reform endeavors, and technology products. We can do better than adopting this insipid perspective and aspire instead for a better future where innovations imagine creative new ways to organize education.
In the 1920s and 1930s, American psychologist Sidney Pressey worked to create a future in which machines would eliminate “the grossly inefficient and clumsy procedures of conventional education,” freeing teachers from routine tasks, to be “real teachers” instead of “clerical workers.”
Pressey created the “Automatic Teacher” to realize this vision. This was a teaching machine that presented information, accepted a response, and returned pre-recorded feedback. Since then, numerous educational technology initiatives have sought to automate the delivery of instruction and assessment.
