I have feelings about this.

I’m also grateful to be part of the movement to empower children and their learning. And, heaven knows, I could use some help. I’m confident that Figure 03 and any of its collective or successors will be less forgetful, will keep up with grading, and will be fully charged and ready after an evening plugged into a USB-C port. These machines will hold lots of information appropriate for individual student needs and our collective intellectual foundations.

Yet current classrooms of all types, organized and cared for by human teachers, are some of my favorite places to visit. Roiling with the froth of human energy, be it kindergarteners or high schoolers, these spaces hold dynamic interactions where people work out ways of working together and their world. Fifth graders raise hands to contribute to discussions around how a heap of leaves disappears over time, adding onto or finding counterarguments to the ideas in the room. Second graders make observations of the leaves that have fallen from oak trees outside their classroom, followed by wonders and ideas for investigations they can take on. Sixth graders in a permanently installed portable classroom hover over earthworms on paper plates with damp napkins and folded paper tents, making notes of how this alien organism operates. Fourth graders devise machines powered by rubber bands and 10-year-old ingenuity, some of the most creative thinking you’ll ever witness. Wonders of nature and humanity coexist in these spaces.

Behind all this is the gumption and bravery of teachers who set this up. They’re very human, flawed, and forgetful, like me, and they host these rich experiences. But who am I to suggest that artificial intelligence, whether robotic or screen-based or otherwise, couldn’t do the same? After all, its technology is based on what humans have already done, mining our ideas and innovations in classrooms and beyond.

That’s when I think back a few years to a class of kindergarteners and their tank of baby trout. Partnering with an agency to raise these youthful fish in their classroom, the end of the school year culminated with children on a gravel shore helping to release the growing fish into their natural habitat. It was about as smooth and organized a prospect as you can imagine; 6-year-olds being who they are and buckets of the fingerlings being what they are. I watched from upstream as all the species celebrated this release.

Then the children sang the song they’d rehearsed for the sendoff, “Bye Bye Trout,” sung to the tune of “Bye Bye Love” by the Everly Brothers. Dappled sunlight poked through spring leaves to paint the scene as the voices competed only with the riffle of water over rock. And then I saw the kindergarten teacher and trout restoration engineer turn and look away, wiping tears. It wasn’t lost on me that watching trout swim away to new lives wasn’t just about the fish; it was about the children doing the same, having grown under the wing and watch of someone who loved them.

Teaching is, of course, about phonics, counting, and remembering, yes. But in the classrooms that I have the privilege of witnessing, it’s about caring, about connecting, about love. Our students have teachers who not only know the stuff to be taught, but know the students they are teaching. They care for these humans, their present and their future, who they are and who they will be.

I don’t expect robots to care any more than I’d expect a computer or a chalkboard or a projector to be empathetic. And I suppose this is one of the features we miss out on when we let technology take the reins of classrooms. In my visits to classrooms, I get to witness expert instruction, kind mentoring, good humor, and compassionate guidance.

Most of all, there’s love. And that’s something I would not be willing to let go of in our classrooms.

Adam Johnston is a professor of physics and director of the Center for Science and Mathematics Education at Weber State University, where he helps prepare future teachers and supports educators throughout Utah. This commentary is provided through a partnership with Weber State. The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent the institutional values or positions of the university.