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May 7, 2026
Can a robot replace a teacher? Veteran educator Sari Beth Rosenberg asked her students — and their answer was a resounding no. In this powerful reflection, students explain why human connection, trust and empathy remain at the heart of meaningful learning.
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I’ve been teaching high school history in New York City for more than two decades. By now, I know when my students are just telling me what I want to hear. But this? This wasn’t that.
When I asked them whether humanoid robots should replace their teachers, they didn’t hesitate. They didn’t hedge. It was an emphatic “no” from every one of my students.
Then they told me exactly why.
By the way, these are not kids who are afraid of technology. They live online. They use AI. They’re not romanticizing chalk and blackboards. They have been partially educated on screens since the 2020 pandemic. But as they explained why they don’t want a robot teaching them, they also seemed to ask, in various ways: What is the purpose of school?
According to my students, the answer is not content delivery and rote memorization. For them, the classroom is about connection and community.
Over and over, they said the same thing in different ways: A robot can’t see when you’re struggling. It can’t read the room. It can’t share something real from its own life that makes you feel less isolated. It can’t build the kind of trust that makes a teenager actually want to show up to school and try. The kids talked about their teachers as role models, as people who taught them how to handle failure, how to treat other people, and how to keep going when something is challenging.
What is the purpose of school? According to my students, the answer is not content delivery and rote memorization. For them, the classroom is about connection and community.
They also raised some questions that should make the adults pushing this conversation uncomfortable. They asked who controls what a robot teaches. They expressed concerns about bias baked into AI systems. They asked what happens to the millions of people who lose their jobs. One student called it dystopian, not for dramatic effect, but matter-of-factly.
None of them said “get rid of AI.” They said educators should use it as a tool, for things like help with grading, providing extra support or personalizing learning — but not to replace the human being in their classroom.
They are drawing a line that Melania Trump and many investors and policymakers have not bothered to draw.
Some people are asking whether AI can do the job of a teacher. My students are asking a better question: What do we lose if it does?
Here’s what I know after 24 years in a classroom: The moments that actually change kids don’t come from a screen. They don’t even come from my planned lesson for the day. They come from a teacher who saw them at the right moment and said the right thing. A teacher who stayed after class or remembered what they said in class last week. Who cared whether they came back. Honestly, some of my best lessons and discussions with students were when all we had was the whiteboard, a dry erase marker, textbooks and notebooks.
Some people are asking whether AI can do the job of a teacher. My students are asking a better question: What do we lose if it does? And their answer is, we lose everything that makes learning human. Everything that builds trust, community and empathy.
We are contending with a generation raised on screens. Robots won’t save us. Humans will.
Republished with permission from AFT Voices.
Join the team from the AI Educator Brain, which includes AFT’s Share My Lesson director Kelly Booz; New York City Public Schools teacher Sari Beth Rosenberg and EdBrAIn, our AI teammate (yes, it named and designed itself!). In this community, we will dissect the pros and cons of AI tools in education. Our mission: to determine how AI can support teaching and learning, and when it might be best to stick with tried-and-true methods.
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