A trend is developing where some schools are using humanoid robots in teaching. While there is no doubt that the humanoid robot can be a store house of actual knowledge particularly in our educational system based on a specific curriculum and examination pattern based on learning from text books, the psychological impact of a machine teaching an young mind is perhaps needs to be researched.
If there can be a psychological impact of lack of biological parents for abandoned children, adopted children, single parents etc, there is a possibility that the teacher being non-human may also have its own impact psychologically on the children which perhaps may become evident not now but after another decade.
Do children look forward to an emotional support from the teacher apart from guidance on the topic? A study can be made in schools while some teachers are more popular with the students than others and why some students thrive better under one class teacher than the other.
While I am not inclined to go into the details of how a student may feel being taught by a robot instead of a human teacher as it is a core psychological subject, as some body observing the development of technology and its effect on the society, I am uncomfortable with the impact that the humanoid teacher may have on the development of a student particularly in the primary and middle educational level.
Many of the students are actually averse to learning and only when the teacher presents the concepts interestingly in the form of exercises, activities etc., are able to learn. Will a robot be able to perform similarly?
Can the robot express empathy and understand from the look of the child that today his/her mother must have scolded him or he has some other concern on the back of his mind and is unable to focus? It is doubtful that except a sentient robot others may not be able to come any where near the experience of learning from a human.
Further students in class learn not only about the subject but also about life. In this respect only a human teacher can evoke empathy even in the student who can see his mother in the form of teacher which is unlikely to happen in the case of a humanoid robots.
I wish some psychology student does a research on this subject and come up with some insight on this topic.
Naavi
