Teachers And Technology: Friends Or Foes?

A quick throwback. In the popular 60’s cartoon show “The Jetsons” on the life of a family of four living 100 years in the future, the youngest of the kids Elroy is being schooled by a robot teacher named Mrs Brainmocker. Now nearly 60 years later, a Bengaluru school has created a humanoid teacher who teaches seventh to ninth grade kids five subjects as technology takes Indian schools towards the future.

The 5’7” robot dressed in formal attire currently looks like a female mannequin come to life and moves about on wheels. Indus International School says it is working on making the robot more ‘human-like’ using silicone and other lifelike materials and that it’s not an attempt to replace teachers but more about assisting the human teachers who may find repetitive nature of some classes mundane or a time-sink.

Yes, given long enough a timeline, facts do get stranger than fiction.

One need not even go back half a decade to review the transformation in the Indian education system.