This just sounds so dystopian to me. You can't replace early childhood interpersonal relationships with a computer. I can remember a number of teachers who had a positive impact on my life because of the relationship we had. I understand you'd want to have other things (mentorship etc) but in reality it would get stripped down to videos + teacher.

Replacing a career teacher with a low-skill babysitter who is half-disinterested does not seem like an improvement. Neither does having students glued to a screen all day instead of interacting with other humans. Those interpersonal skills are more important -- even in tech -- and an educational model like this would inevitably cut back on those by providing a cheaper alternative to human interaction.

Despite the fact that there are lots of talented and passionate teachers, I think it's fairly easy to describe the current American public school system as dystopian. Kids spend all day mostly just rote learning, barely allowed to use their own initiative, moving at a pace that is, in a class of 30 children, statistically probably someone else's, and not allowed to socialize except during very prescribed times. I'm exaggerating for effect, of course, but all the social interaction I remember from school was time that was smuggled, it was not a system designed for social interaction.

I agree that you can't replace relationships with computers, but I'm not sure public school is such a fertile ground for great relationships, at least not more than any number of plausible alternative systems.

> I agree that you can't replace relationships with computers, but I'm not sure public school is such a fertile ground for great relationships, at least not more than any number of plausible alternative systems.

Maybe we can't replace those relationships yet, but I'm sure eventually it will be possible. Educational tech should have the ability to do much more than human teachers ever could.

> You can't replace early childhood interpersonal relationships with a computer.

Ha. Kids can interact with computers (or rather, tablets) earlier than they meaningfully interact with people. So not only is the replacement possible, it is already ongoing. The only question is how productive the computer-based interaction is going to be. Educational content handily beats weird AI-generated video-clickbait.

I don't understand from your comment how you think using a tablet or any kind of programmatic system replaces teacher student interactions for personal development - that is, kids being kids with adults, and learning from it.

I agree with you on the importance of interpersonal relationships; however, U.S. K-12 teaching is hardly a model of consistency when it comes to quality, experience, and availability (there was a projected 110K teacher shortage last school year). What if the choice for parents and students was between Sal Khan and an dispassionate teacher, substitute teacher, or underpaid and under-supported teacher?

This is probably where tech will take us. A few "rock star" teachers will teach most of the students the main content, and the current, run-of-the-mill teachers will effectively become TAs. The downside is for the run-of-the-mill teachers to lose their autonomy, discretion, and ability to apply their professionalism and creativity. The upside will be that rock star teachers will finally start to get paid like, well, rock stars.

Rock star teachers are rock stars because of their ability to connect with students. The rock star teacher presenting to hundreds of students is not as effective as the same teacher in a small group.

True, but rock star teachers also find creative and effective ways to teach things that are hard to teach. Just like Eddie Van Halen may make playing the guitar look easy to someone who doesn’t play, rock star teachers make communicating difficult ideas look easy. Many people don’t understand the preparation required for a good lesson- often those people are other teachers.