Automated Teaching Machine: A Graphic Introduction to the End of Human Teachers

Arthur King & Adam Bessie:

"The machine lasts indefinitely. It gets no wrinkles, no arthritis, no hardening of the arteries . . . Two machines replace 114 men that take no coffee breaks, no sick leaves, no vacations with pay," proclaims the watch-twirling, hard-hearted CEO Wallace V. Whipple in a particularly prescient 1964 episode of The Twilight Zone. Despite the emotional pleas of the workers and their union, Whipple robo-sources 250,000 factory jobs to the "X109B14 modified, transistorized, totally automated machine." The machine - a cardboard prop filled with vacuum tubes, twirling doo-dads and feverishly blinking diodes may be hilariously outdated, laughable even. But less laughable, though, is that this cautionary tale has come to pass: Today, 50 years later, American workers need not only compete with foreign labor, but with automatons. It's no longer science fiction, but common-sense corporate practice.
Mr. Whipple was not a warning, but rather, a muse.

Nowhere has Mr. Whipple inspired more watch-twirling CEOs of late than in the Global Education Reform Movement, which seeks to privatize public education. Last year, Adam Bessie profiled this movement - lead by billionaires, industrialists and the Wall Street elite - in a three-part comic series with graphic journalist Dan Archer "The Disaster Capitalism Curriculum: The High Price ofEducation Reform" (See also episode II, and episode III).

Posted by Jim Zellmer at September 5, 2013 4:23 AM
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