One person whose work profoundly shaped my thinking and practice as a
writer was Isaac Asimov. Asimov was the clearest explainer I have ever
seen in print. He was at his height in a monthly science column he wrote
for Fantasy & Science Fiction, the most literate of all SF magazines. In
that column he tackled complex issue after complex issue within his 10 page
limit. Each piece glistened like a tiny clear little gem of scientific
insight. He wrote these columns month after month without fail, totaling
some 399 of them, and his streak was broken only by his last and fatal
illness. Every time I tackle a tough topic in my own writing, I try to
think of how Asimov might have done it within his 10 pages....
I was also fond of his fiction, but to a much lesser degree. Actually, the
only fiction of his that I really liked was, of course, the Foundation
trilogy (but as an adult I have shied away from revisiting these novels
out of a fear that they will not measure up to my original 12 year old
impressions) and his robot stories. The coolest thing about his robot
stories was his 3 Laws of Robotics. These laws were wired into each and
every positronic brain. In rough paraphrase, they were:
1) A robot must not harm a human nor, through inaction, allow a human to
come to harm.
2) A robot must obey the orders of humans, except where such orders would
violate the first law.
3) A robot must strive to protect itself, expect where these efforts would
violate either the first or second law.
As an educational researcher and theorist, I wonder what would happen if,
in some futuristic setting, we might decide to turn over the task of
teaching to Asimovian robots? What might we wire into their positronic
crania about the craft of teaching?
Here, submitted for your amusement and perusal, is Shank's Three Teaching
Corollaries to Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics. Since they deal
specifically with teaching, the robot will be called a "teacher":
1) A teacher must strive to foster educational processes to prepare
students intellectually, to motivate them psychologically, and to develop
them humanely for the task of transforming their society into Utopia.
2) A teacher must strive to provide an atmosphere of comfort and support
for students, except where such efforts would be in violation of the first
corollary.
3) A teacher must strive to band together with other teachers to form a
community of scholars, except where such efforts would be in violation of
either the first or the second corollary.
These corollaries lead to many discussion points. What do we mean by
Utopia? Whose utopia? What would happen if we gave up, instead, on the
notion that teaching is a tranformative act? What does the second
corollary say about, for instance, student evaluations of teachers? Should
students also be bound by these corollaries? What does the third corollary
say about the old chestnut that teachers cannot research and researchers
cannot teach? Does it support it, or refute it?
There are any number of pieces that could be written on these corollaries.
Here is one such point. As the corollaries presently stand, they assume
that if we currently have the knowledge and the means to create Utopia,
that we should do so with shat we have. Therefore, in principle, a teacher
might not ever function as a researcher. But, given the fact that no one
has been able to create Utopia yet, the task of finding the path to Utopia
remains open. Given that the second corollary by itself cannot lead to
Utopia, it seems to be the case that transformation is not just an act of
teaching but also an act of research by teachers that will lead to better
teaching. A very Peircean turn, if you ask me.
Thoughts?
gary shank
shank@duq.edu
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Mar 07 2000 - 17:54:04 PST