I had the privilege of visiting with Gheorghe Conan this week. Although it would seem that we don’t have a lot in common it became apparent that we share a love of teaching.
Gheorghe’s early school days in Romania could have led him to embrace a very behavioristic and rigid approach to teaching but instead it revealed to him what he did not want to do. Over the years his philosophy for teaching shifted to a humanist approach. His passion to teach was formed by recognizing that only teachers with open minds would be able to shape learners thinking in ways that he saw as beneficial to both the teacher and student. So he decided to become one of those teachers!
Not only is Gheorghe taking his Provincial Instructor’s Diploma but he is also working on an MBA. During his time with other students at SFU he connected to people who were experimenting with robots. Curiosity ensued about the use of AI in education and out of this curiosity Gheorghe picked the article Bot-teachers in hybrid massive open online courses (MOOCs): A post-humanist experience. He considered learning theory perspectives, specifically humanist, and asked, “Will it help the learner?” He sees Artificial Intelligence (AI) as both a blessing and a curse. Gheorghe recognizes that it can assist with barriers that students may have with access due to location or other circumstances and also may save human time and resources, but it cannot replace what happens with people when they are in a human to human learning situation.
On one of Gheorghe’s many adventures at sea, he met a doctor who he calls a ‘saint’. He quoted him as saying, “You can’t change the world but you can change the world for one person”. The way in which this doctor conducted his life left a lasting impression on Gheorghe.
The industry that Gheorghe has worked in for years is very traditional and has many of the tentacles of patriarchy. Over the years Gheorghe came to the understanding that the sooner you can prevent this ‘infection’ the better and if he can be the kind of teacher to shift a younger person’s thinking sooner, then he wants to be that teacher. It is Gheorghe’s view that personal connection, sharing of stories and style of teaching is the kind of interaction that AI cannot replicate and therefore cannot facilitate meaningful change in a student’s life.