XplanaZine

There is no doubt teachers need students to teach. Strangely enough, the converse is not as obvious because we find ourselves debating about the pros and cons of computerized instructors.
We know there are a few specialists who use their creativity and skill to ‘train’ machines. Yet, we don’t think of computer programmers as teachers or trainers. After all, we teach or train people whereas we program machines. But the difference between teaching and programming is more than just the stylistic pairing up of a verb with the matching object.
Machines have no brains, in the sense that they have no minds. They have processing units we can liken to brains, but neither their inorganic material constitution nor their low level of sophistication can account for the absence of a mind that was never there to begin with. To think that machines have (primitive) brains won’t adversely affect them, but to think that people are mechanical processing units creates the impulse to program students for the same speedy input-output process we are accustomed to seeing in machines. Many students are conditioned to expect it and many teachers believe it to be their duty. We started by modeling computers on humans and end up modeling humans on computers, but not for long.
But it is true that even teaching and learning involve some programming stages when totally new material is presented. However, the learners do their own rewiring and reprogramming to integrate it with the rest of their structure. Exposing students to new material is a job a person can do better but we could admit that in some cases it could be done by a machine. That’s because raw information is like food and the human mind will seek it and absorb it from many sources. Of course, it is much better if the food is chosen and prepared with care and is tasty and nutritious - it could be made to order or could be prepackaged by a controlled industry. Nevertheless, in cases of starvation we know that people will eat almost anything to survive,similarly, they will accept raw information even from a machine, Therefore, new information is not the ‘essence’ of teaching although it still remains an important part of it. There are many more aspects of teaching that no machine could ever replicate or be programmed to provide. Here, we’ll talk about one of them. I’ll call it the ‘other self feedback.’

Computers are programmed to give some kind of feedback; at least they provide error alerts or ‘applause’ when we play a computer game and win. But all this is simply information or confirmation, that is, a one-time, static but useful thing. The addition of a human voice or face can’t provide an illusion strong enough to exceed its static limitation, but we still find the illusion desirable.
Why do we make machines applaud for us even when it doesn’t seem to be necessary? Winning is a reward in itself, so, why isn’t it enough? It’s true there is no substitute for self-reliance. We hear a lot about the importance of self-empowerment and believing in one’s self. They are absolutely necessary but, apparently, they are not enough. Another human being’s feedback has no substitute and it is impossible for a person to simulate other people’s effect on himself or herself. Students can’t do it, teachers can’t do it, either.
Tom Hanks (as Chuck Noland) in the Cast Away, found a volleyball that was washed up on the same island’s shore he found himself. He used his own blood to paint a face on it because his minor accidental injury allowed him to do so, at the spur of the moment. Besides, there was no other paint readily available. But his act was not an outpouring of artistic urgency. If he wanted to do art he could have used the pigment from a natural substance found on the island. The scene is a powerful one because the blood he used was what was running in the veins of his living body, it was a unique symbol of a living human being. He thus ‘animated’ an inert object at a desperate moment. He created ‘Wilson’, his friend. It might look like he needed company, but it wasn’t just loneliness he was trying to combat. The support and help we receive from others are much more than the obvious facts they seem to be. If we see ourselves as sophisticated machines we may not be able to understand the deeper meaning of human interaction, neither that of being individuals.
A face is not that important as long as there exists a real human being, another Self. Faces become necessary only when there is nobody there. But when there are people, as are the ones we meet and communicate with online, then seeing or hearing them becomes an optional bonus. Other people are like mirrors at various angles, their images are similar to ours, yet different. Their contribution goes beyond information and company. It is no wonder that humans become better and give of themselves when there are others who accept the offer and join forces with them.
Similarly, giving feedback to students is more to them than just information about how well they did. What ’s important is that their teacher responded to them and not just because he or she knows best - although the latter plays also an important role. We know from experience that people are not motivated very much to improve when a machine approves or disapproves of them. We also know that their self-motivation has its own limits. Here’s where the importance of Other people’s input starts to become more evident.
But the feedback teachers need from their students is also necessary and not only to help them improve their teaching. It is important because there are real students who need to learn. Many can verify that it is nearly impossible to teach a group of people who seem totally indifferent and unresponsive. And that is not because the students are not receptive (because despite their appearance they may still be willing to learn) but because the teachers lose their motivation in face of the students’ apparent indifference. Two-way feedback is fundamental precisely because there are people who stand behind it. Fortunately or unfortunately, we tend to take the existence of other people for granted. We also interact with machines more frequently than ever. Therefore, it becomes necessary to remember what human feedback hinges on and what makes it so valuable. It is the meeting with another-self, another possible mode of existence but still like our own, which enables the individual to live and grow in the human community that sustains it and is sustained by it.