Thanks to the rapid developments in education technology, there is an abundance of teaching tools available to educators: videos students can watch at home, lesson plans that can be easily downloaded (and for free), courses that can be completed at one’s own pace. With so much information available, much of it on platforms developed by private companies, high school English teacher Michael Godsey asks what this all means for the future of the teaching profession in this post in The Atlantic, and what the role of “facilitator” could mean in the future classroom that’s closer to five years away instead of 20.

In the Atlantic:

“I don’t have many answers in this brave new world, but I feel like I can draw one firm line. There is a profound difference between a local expert teacher using the Internet and all its resources to supplement and improve his or her lessons, and a teacher facilitating the educational plans of massive organizations. Why isn’t this line being publicly and sharply delineated, or even generally discussed? This line should be rigorously guarded by those who want to keep education professionals in the center of each classroom. Those calling for teachers to “transform their roles,” regardless of motive or intentionality, are quietly erasing this line—effectively deconstructing the role of the teacher as it’s always been known.”