Why Robots can’t teach nor cut hair

I’ve just spent the morning with my wonderful hairstylist Maz, basking in nothingness, sipping cappuccino and chatting motherhood, Christmas toys and the pandemonious effects of drizzly rain on curly hair. It might have been one of those hair dryers that look like a spinning Starship Enterprise that started it, but the subject soon turned to artificial intelligence and how safe our jobs might be in the robot revolution.

Could a robot do Maz’s job? Well, technically speaking, probably yes. It could measure the three-dimensional shape of the face, the number of hair follicles and their thickness; it might offer a questionnaire on life-style and whether you favour cool over low maintenance. I guess it would easily make you that cappuccino just the way you like it, with a couple of individually wrapped Biscoff. Be a damn sight cheaper and quicker, too. I’m sure the results would be insightful, we could even pitch machine against machine according to the accuracy of the cut and set up a league table of stylists. We could make a lot of money, Maz and I, in this AI hairdressing conglomerate of ours.

And then we got back to talking about me, because after all, I’m in the swivelly chair, we’re both staring at my unruly mane and who doesn’t like talking about themselves with their stylist? We chatted about my various stints in education, experience as Head of English, teaching, writing and home-schooling. There was, we agreed, potential for smart thinking machines to offer pupils individualised content and, joy, take over some of the marking for teachers. Could a robot do an English teacher’s job? Well, technically speaking, also, probably yes.

So why are Maz and I so sceptical, particularly as we have just established, AI will make us millionaires? I guess it might be because we have both, in our respective fields, had a taste of it: pressure to be like everyone else, to behave, to do our jobs in a set way, to be judged on what someone else has decreed is a set of standards and shared belief that our results measure everything. Because they do not. Just as Maz might achieve the perfect technical cut but not be happy unless her client feels fabulous, so my cohort of pupils might achieve A* at A’Level Literature yet feel I have failed them if they don’t leave me with a passion for the subject that will last them a lifetime.

Dead Poets’ Society         #goals

The biggest compliment a pupil can give me is that I have ignited in them a love of English reading/writing. One of my pupils said exactly this, very recently, and my heart soared. He will get an A or A* because he is passionate, works hard and has an open heart and mind to be filled with the joy of literature and its influence on everything around him. His grades will reflect something of this, and an important by-product they are, too. But while future employers will see his grade, they won’t understand his passion until they meet him because a top grade has not (necessarily) measured it.

An educational system that values the individual connection between pupil and subject, is organic in that it allows for flexible, tailored teaching approaches, encourages self discovery and independent thought, is the one in which I want to teach. It is also the one that Maz wants for her daughter, an avid reader and writer who is already feeling the pressure to perform at school. She’s 8.

During our morning, I was reminded of the time, a few years back, when I went to a hairstylist and rather tremulously allowed myself to be talked into having my hair blow-dried straight, as was (and I believe still might be?) the fashion. My stylist was delighted with it. I think she thought she’d managed to tame the beast. And technically, it was a good – it moved in a way I hadn’t known my hair could, it was trendy and I looked just like all of my cool friends. I detested it from the moment I saw it, didn’t recognise myself and immediately went home to muss it up.

As with hairstyling, you can’t have a one-size-fits-all approach to teaching, by human or robot (or hubot as a teacher friend has it). You have to reflect that we, pupils and teachers, are all individuals with different strengths and style preferences. Maz gets me and my hair. She teases out the natural curl and encourages the shine with expert, human touch. She makes me love my hair. Even in the drizzle. Ofsted, wake up. Schools, stand up to the government; Teachers, keep using your personality and passion for your subject to inspire others; and pupils – we, owe it to you to ensure you don’t just make the cut, but you also leave our charge inspired for a lifetime of learning.

Sitting the A-level CREW exam with my students? What was I thinking?!

Sitting the A’Level CREW exam with my students last week felt a little like I was teetering dangerously on that precipice that says brave on one side and utterly foolish on the other. Everything to lose surely, and not much to gain. Everyone would expect a Head of English to shine at the subject she teaches, right? Well, I knew it was a risk and hey, I have no idea how it all went. But I’m very glad I did it.

It’s been *coughs* quite a while since I sat an exam. The adrenaline was pumping fast as we entered the exam hall. My fixed grin and thumbs up to the girls was met with nervous smiles and it hit home that this was just one of several similar ordeals they would endure this exam season. How we forget that intensity of pressure! My worst fear last week was public humiliation, possibly that joyous ignominy of a two line diatribe in the Mail on teachers failing their pupils etc. But these girls? their future – or their perception of it at least,  their university places hanging in the balance, their hopes and dreams and desires are all wrapped up in this.  Last week, my heart went out to them in a way it hadn’t before.

But just for a short while, my job was to be just like them: focussed, confident, clear-headed, in the zone. The invigilators, necessarily strict and serious, gave me that reassuringly guilty feeling you get when walking through Customs. My contraband pink squash was removed at the door. So far so good. I was pumped. And you need to be for this exam.

The ‘Writing on Demand’ paper in the AQA A’level CREW exam is all about being a journalist writing 300 words to a tight brief and to a tight deadline. You don’t know what type of journalist you are til you see those questions – what kind of voice you will need to adopt, who your audience is, what tone you’ll need to take, what the purpose of your writing is, what the subject is, whether it’s a blog, newspaper article, report or leaflet… This is quite an ask. No other A’level English exam demands this of our students – which is just one of the reasons we need Ofqual to make it stay… but that’s another blog for another day.

Of the four questions, the one asking us to address our writing heroes and how they have influenced our own writing stood out as something of a gift. I was delighted to discover that many of our girls opted for this one. Ruminating on our writing Gods and their choices, whether it be that of the first person, the present tense, their sparse style, the engaging first line… was simply a joy for any of us slightly obsessive writer/readers. Keeping it to 300 words was a challenge but I just kept with the mantra I’d been spouting to my girls for the past three months: refine, edit, distil, every word must earn its place…  The other question I opted for was asking for personal experiences of education – for a government website I think. I don’t believe even one of our girls went for this option. Was it because they felt their own experiences were somehow limited? Had I not taught them to be whomever they so wished when writing? to embellish? to lie? Mixing some personal experience (to really nail that authenticity of voice) with a little bit of embellishment for ‘entertainment’ value was the approach I took but I must say, that’s a question I will be revisiting with my next cohort as an exercise on writing in a different persona.

Two of the other questions demanded that candidates digest information – in one instance, two pages of copy on social media – before synthesising, summarising and rewriting. I steered clear of these as to an old hack like me they seemed more restrictive, but it was interesting that quite a few of our girls opted for one or both. I wonder if it is because there is that sense that they have something concrete to work with – some definite idea of content right there in front of them. I made a note-to-self to boost girls’ confidence by preparing them to write something out of a mere idea a bit more, to bravely find their own voice as they did with their coursework. But let’s face it, if they did it well, (Please God, they did!) what more can I ask of them?