Well, this was going to happen sooner or later
I used to tell my students that I would teach until I died, and then have my body stuffed and mounted with animatronics while old tapes of my teaching played. Turns out that I didn't do that, but it was still a thing someone could do.
If you think teaching is the act of pouring Knowledge Stuff from one container into another, I guess this makes sense. And I can imagine the administration salivating over the prospect of a "teacher" who requires no pay, no benefits, and no lengthy hiring process to acquire.
The weirdness that the poster talks about is, I think, a residue of the natural inclination we have to think of ourselves as in a relationship with our teachers. Hell, forty-some years later I still have a warm spot in my heart for Julius Sumner Miller and his videos of physics demonstrations which, though we were clearly watching a recording, seemed live and real and for us in 1974. So finding out that a person you think has been, in some way, sort of, really talking to you--well, they're actually dead. That's a little disconcerting, like taking a step backward and having your foot meet air rather than floor.
Practically speaking, why not. Is Khan Academy going to CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Meet Your Dead Teacher
