The Solution

Two Birds, One Stone

AI addresses problems of disengagement and bullying together by providing a private, adaptive, personal, safe environemnt where children can ask as many questions as they like as often as they like without fear that their equestions will provoke ridicule or invite punishment.

AI is infinitely patient.

To the argument that replies that the experience of bullying and humiliation is "character-building" we would only reply that such an answer is seldom given by anyone who has been on the receiving end of such treatment. The experience of being bullied or humiliated is more likely to lead to resentment, anger, withdrawal, and a reluctance to engage with learning than to any positive outcome. The "it'll make a man of him" argument is as bankgrupt now as ever it was.

The fundamental problem is that pupils need first to be engaged.
Only then will they learn.

This flies in the face of a traditional view - the Wackford Squeers, Dotheby's Hall view depicted by Dickens in Nicholas Nickleby - that pupils have to take whatever punishment their peers dole out "with a stiff upper lip" and acquiesce in whatever the curriculum demands "because it is good for them"; "because it teaches them discipline"; "because they have to learn to obey and to do what they are told to do whether they understand why or not". To breed with brutality and cruelty is to spread brutality and cruelty.

At EDSIL we believe that this approach is misguided, demonstrably ineffective, and likely to be a disaster in an AI world where flexibility, imagination, inventiveness and enthusiasm are the characteristics successful humans are most likely to exhibit.

So a pupil with access to AI not only at home or in the quiet of a library or study-area but during the class itself can ask endless questions without risking being thought ridiculous or over-keen. The pupil can pursue their own interests and needs without fear of ridicule or humiliation. This creates a climate of curiosity and exploration that is conducive to learning.

Personalised Learning

No teacher, however willing, can attend fully to each pupil's individual needs and interests in a class of 20 or 30 or seomtimes even 60 or 80 pupils. But with AI as a personal tutor available to each pupil during and after the class, every pupil can have their own questions answered, their own interests serviced, and their own learning journey supported. This creates a more inclusive and equitable learning environment where every pupil has the opportunity to succeed.

AI makes personalised profiling feasible and more informative.

Moreover, an AI can keep track of each pupil's learning-trajectory and map it into the standard curriculum so that the obvious fear that pupils in pursuing their own interests "do not learn what they need to learn" is mitigated. And the AI can then report on each pupil's progress in a manner and with detail that a lone teacher will find almost impossible to match or reproduce.