Zoe Armstrong – MET

Speculative Futures

September 2040:

This will be my first year piloting the new differentiation robot: Eddie. Eddie was designed as an AI teacher’s assistant with a specific focus on identifying learning needs in individual students and outputting resources at each of their levels. Eddie can quickly draft up a report on where each student is sitting in each subject, can identify areas of opportunity, areas of strength and tangible steps the teacher can take to aid with the students growth.

Eddie was created to support each student in getting the individual attention they need without requiring 24 teachers for a 24 student class. I feel extremely lucky that my classroom was selected to pilot this AI and am looking forward to being able to focus more on supporting the social and emotional needs of each of my students while Eddie takes care of curating accurate pedagogical resources for me. My students are thrilled to have a new AI buddy in the class that will assist them throughout the year.

June 2040:

Though challenging, this was one of the most rewarding years of my teaching career. With the help of Eddie, I was able to clearly and quickly identify the learning needs of my students, scaffold their learning appropriately and help them find success. Not only that, but I was able to build extremely strong relationships with each of them and I was able to spend the time helping them to grow as social and emotional human beings. Eddie provided the answers to all my questions about each of my students reading, writing and problem-solving levels. Eddie helped me to create assessment that matched students strengths and their favorite ways to show their learning. Though students still failed, they were rarely defeated. Eddie was there to provide them with a new resources to try that better matched their learning style and passions. The balance between the AI platform in Eddie and the social and emotional support I was able to provide students was the perfect setting for learning, discovering and growing.

August 2045:

I have worked successfully with Eddie over the last 4 years. There is no denying the success that students have found by working with AI that can identify each of their personal needs. Since the COVID-19 Pandemic, students were behind but I can confidently say that they are now caught up and in fact ahead in their abilities. Students are thriving and have found so much joy in learning.

September 2045:

I have just been notified that school districts across that country have been told that the government now deems teachers dispensable. Thousands have been let go as they no longer feel a physical teacher is needed with the revolution of Eddie. Eddie is able to produce all the materials students need for learning. What worries me most is that though Eddie knows more about each student than a human teacher ever could, Eddie is unable to deal with the social and emotional needs that often take priority over curriculum when they arise. Students won’t any longer have the adult role model in front of them guiding them in how to deal with tough situations.

June 2045:

2045 was a record year for absences in schools across all provinces and territories, across all grades and all schools. Enrollment in public schools has dropped by nearly 75% for the upcoming school year. School counsellors were overwhelmed with the demand for supports and over 50% of them have taken mental health leaves or have decided to leave the profession. School fights saw an increase, student isolation saw an increase, bullying saw an increase and students abilities to show empathy towards one another showed a large decrease. Though students continue to thrive academically, socially and emotionally they have been defeated.