Guide to English Writing

Sample Essays
37
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As “thinking” computers move from fiction to reality, people are concerned about their 
children’s education. While it is inevitable that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will someday enter 
the education system, I highly doubt computers can manage a classroom full of children since 
they lack certain traits only human teachers have.
Among these traits is empathy. Machines cannot feel, therefore they cannot sense emotional 
responses and needs in children, who themselves have not fully developed the ability to make 
themselves understood. In other words, young children depend heavily on their parents’ and 
teachers’ abilities to guess what is on their minds. A machine, for all its intelligence, can only 
be programed with facts and figures and to respond accordingly; it cannot be taught to react 
to tears, tantrums, or sullen silences, nor can it equate a student’s irrationally aggressive 
behaviour with his lack of comprehension of the material or even something as simple as 
hunger.
Conversely, empathy and previous experience enables teachers to expect the unexpected, 
to make quick adjustments, and to improvise. Of course, computers can calculate scenarios 
based on data, but they cannot respond properly to human kids acting unpredictably, as kids 
often do. For example, a computerized instructor could respond to a fire alarm and usher 
students out of the building to a safe area. However, a computer could not react to an angry 
child’s rebellion by appealing to her rationality, or to a sensitive student’s response to a peer’s 
abuse, or to a slumping sports team that requires a pep talk. Human teachers, who have 
lived through these scenarios themselves, can draw on their life experiences to deal with any 
situation, be it practical or emotional.
In conclusion, while AI can do many things and be a useful tool in the classroom, the one thing 
it cannot do, which is essential to teaching, is to be human. Thus, teachers should not worry 
about being replaced by computers.
(320)
@IELTS_Council

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