3 ms·

If Schools Don't Change, Robots Will Bring On a 'Permanent Underclass'

• dalke 12y ago
  When I was in 6th grade, so early 1980s, I had a homework assignment to ask an adult (in this case my Dad) if they were worried that a robot would take over their job. I bring this up because there's essentially nothing in the article that couldn't have been written in the 1970s. Also, the idea of "this lovely future where robots do the work and humans design the robots and everyone has leisure time and lots of money" dates back to at least Marx ... or the Jetsons if you want a pop culture reference. I was also a child of the 70s and 80s, which means I remember the classroom experimentation of that era, like arranging the seats in circles, students being able to pick which classes to attend, and teachers stressing that the point wasn't to "memorize what is told to them" but to understand the ideas. (There were also teachers who wanted use to memorize things.) I am an adult of the 2010s. The high stakes testing and commercialization paradigm of the last 15 years - a generation of students! - was sold to us as the revolution needed to upset the old ways of 20th century factory workers. I don't believe them. Why then should I believe the people mentioned in this Vice article, who sell their revolution using the same talking points?