I read a fabulous blog by Seth Godin last week that explored two seemingly disconnected concepts – Artificial Intelligence (AI) and caring.
I reckon Seth is a particularly insightful guy, and I recommend his daily blog to you. But this blog, in particular, got my attention because I think it has implications for both teachers and students.
What Seth concludes is that caring is now a competitive advantage. He contends that any person in a job they don’t care about is in danger from AI. If your job is about clocking on and completing mundane tasks while you mentally dwell in another place, a machine or algorithm will eventually be developed to replace you. And you’d probably deserve it.
Implications for teachers/teaching:
- The more you make your job the mere delivery of curriculum, the less relevant you are.
- The intense emotional labour of teaching is what makes it worthwhile, difficult and absurdly important for the future of our country.
- The more you build student capacity to care, the more you install so-called soft skills, and the more likely you’ll be to set them up for authentic adult success.
Implications for students:
- If they don’t know how to care for others, they’re less likely to find a rewarding career.
- If they don’t learn to care about their work and contribution, they won’t be valuable in the future workforce.
- If they aren’t teachable and enthusiastic for learning that doesn’t produce a score or immediate reward, they won’t access their potential.
Seems there’s a lot on the line when it comes to care and empathy. In fact, it seems like these qualities are about to become core business for schools.
Actually, maybe they were all along.
Keep fighting that good fight,
PS. I’m running a three-part Leading Whole School Behaviour Improvement webinar series. On 16 November is Webinar 2: Who are these people? You can learn more about it here or register here.
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