Peter Scott has been an ethics teacher at an inner-Sydney school for more than 12 years now. In this blog post, Peter looks back – and into the future.
I have been a Primary Ethics teacher at Glenmore Rd PS for 12 years now and I still wake up each week with the excitement of exploring the curriculum with new students. In my early years I used to get butterflies at the thought of managing a group of students. The school’s teachers and Primary Ethics colleagues helped me with lots of tips and built up my confidence. I have taught three stages and seen the curriculum evolve over the years, becoming easier to deliver and more effective in the discussions.
I recently started a new topic with my stage 3 class, Interacting with AI. We were all excited to discuss something so important. About 10 minutes in, I asked the class to tell me what they thought artificial intelligence was. Hands shot up around the circle, but before I could choose a student, a voice calmly rang out with a full description. The class went very quiet as calling out was breaking our class rules.
More disturbing though was that the voice was not one of my students, it was Siri!
I use an Ipad to deliver the curriculum and Siri had been listening in. When the question was asked she couldn’t contain herself and jumped into the middle of the discussion. It was quite spooky and seemed entirely appropriate, although it took several minutes to get the class calmed and back on track.
So now I have an extra student in my class. I have asked Siri to please observe the class rules before she decides to call out again!