The email says they are a leading provider of AI based educational technology. Am I ready, the email asks, to take the step into personalised learning, a world where learning is deep and tutoring intelligent? They have found, the email says, that teachers like me become much more effective when given the opportunity to set pedagogically rich assessments and the burden of grading is reduced. Am I ready, the email wonders, the obviousness of it’s attempt to whip me into a readiness crescendo leaving a shallow taste, to take advantage of the deep insights into student learning their technology offers and in doing so improve my students’ outcomes in summative tests?

The header text is baby blue and the content a soft black set against a clean, white background. There is the soft image of a brain at the top of the email, underlayed with numbers and computer-based images, which makes me think of the future, but not in the way they probably want me to. Below the text is an image of a smiling student with a backpack on, leaning against a rail in a corridor, bright light from a window shining behind him; and then another image of a teacher and some students standing around a table, their tablets laid flat, all showing similar content. One student is leaning over the table, obviously excited, perhaps even amazed. The teacher is pointing at something on her screen, which is in the middle of the table so everyone can focus on it. The eyes of every student are focused on her finger. They are in a library with their backs to an out of focus bookshelf.

This product is unique, the email says. They have developed an AI powered chatbot feature that allows students to converse with their technology. This learning assistant guides students to conceptual mastery, utilising the principals of conversational pedagogy. Feedback is instant. Students are prompted to go deep. As the conversation evolves, the chatbot offers increasingly personalised hints and tips. Can I imagine, the email asks, the impact that will have on student engagement and outcomes?

There is a soft-neon, nonthreatening-green button to click at the bottom of the email inviting me to step into the future of personalised learning.

My right leg has somehow folded itself up under the left one. My left elbow is proped up on the desk, and I am nursing my chin in that hand. My right arm is wrapped around my torso, and I become conscious of my fingers pressing into my ribs. The light is artifical and bright. I am the only one in the office.

I scroll back to the top of the email. How have they got my name?

The bench near the library entrance is one of the few that isn’t still damp. I sit and close my eyes, feeling the sun on my face, low and soft. My feet are flat on the ground, my hands in my lap. It’s quiet, Period 4 well underway. I open my eyes and look at the rough bark and spindly branches of the tree to my right and my mind is drawn to the light that weaves through them. I open my book. It’s about a young woman, just out of university and on the threshold of her adult life, whose great-great-great-great grandfather was certain there was a sea in the middle of Australia. All the geological signs pointed to it, he and others believed. He had convinced powerful men to fund his expeditions, none of which resulted in finding the sea, yet every single one led him and others to believe with more certainty, they proclaimed, despite the death of many who went with him, in the truth of its existence.

The gentlest of breezes lifts my head. I look across the quad and see him, his baseball cap slightly askew and in a non-regulation hoodie. I wave him over. He sees me and comes. We say hi to each other and then sit for a bit, enjoying the sun. I break the silence, asking if he is ok because he seemed wild this morning. He is now, he says, but I was right, he was a wild because he hasn’t had much sleep. I’m pleased you’re feeling better now, I say.

The book is between us. He looks down and asks about it and I tell him, and the whole time I’m thinking about how frustrated I’d been this morning with him, his wildness. Yet now, in the sun, out of the heat of the classroom, he’s attentive and engaged, personable and calm and we can just talk. Faaar out, that sounds interesting, he says when I’m done. I can’t put it down, I say, that’s why I’m here reading in the sun instead of doing work in the office. He looks me in the eye, holds it. You know when you read, he asks, what does your mind do?

And I tell him about how it grips onto plot and how it draws up images of characters, and I tell him about how it rides emotions, and I tell him about how it gets struck by beautiful phrasing now and then and how sometimes it gets blown away by a way of thinking about something, and how it relishes the task of holding onto multiple threads. And then I tell him how that all feels, how it’s calming, and how the mind starts to want more of it once it’s got in the habit; he nods at this, then he tells me he can’t hold his eyes on the line and he can’t keep track of things, but if he could maybe he would like that book too; and because it’s been so nice just to sit and talk with him, to get some more time with him today and get a chance to nurture the space that had opened between us, all I do is smile back.

He walks back to his class, across the sunlit quad and past the seagulls scoffing what’s left after morning tea, his swagger finding its beat on his right leg.

It’s dark. The fire is roaring. The dishes are done and I’m on the couch, a cup of tea in hand and a record on. The story of Google AI telling someone to put glue on their pizza is in the headlines. It’s just the AI having a hallucination, they assure us (and there is nothing they can do to stop them from happening: we must get used to a future full of hallucinations, apparently).

And there’s John Lennon on the turntable,

All I want is the truth 
Just gimme some truth

No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of Tricky Dicky 
Is gonna mother hubbard soft soap me 
With just a pocketful of hope 
Money for dope 
Money for rope