For Homebound Students, a Robot Proxy in the Classroom

All without leaving her living room.

Born with a chronic heart disorder that weakened her immune system and made attending school risky, Lexie, 9, was tutored at her home in Sumter for years. But this spring, her family began experimenting with an alternative ׀ a camera-and-Internet-enabled robot that swivels around the classroom and streams two-way video between her school and house.

ӀShe immediately loved the robot,Ԁ her mother, Cristi Kinder, said, of the device, called a VGo, which Lexie controls from her home computer. Lexie dressed up the robot, which is about the height of her third-grade classmates, in pink ribbons and a tutu, and she renamed it Princess VGo.

A small but quickly growing number of chronically ill students ׀ at least 50 across the country ׀ now attend school virtually with what are called Ӏremote presence robots.Ԁ The technology is still expensive (a VGo costs $6,000, in addition to $1,200 a year for maintenance and other costs) and imperfect (when the robot loses its Internet connection, it goes lifeless and must be pushed).

And despite the fantasies of LexieҀs classmates ׀ ӀI want a robot so I can stay in bed all day,Ԁ one 8-year-old said ׀ such robots are mostly last resorts for children restricted to their houses or hospital rooms.

As Web-based video becomes more prominent as a teaching tool, special education advocates say these robots are valuable alternatives to tutoring. About 23,000 students across the country are homebound or hospitalized each school year. They might not otherwise interact with classmates or could fall farther behind academically, advocates say.

ӀSoon, these robots should be the price of an inexpensive laptop,Ԁ said Maja Mataric, a computer science professor at the University of Southern California, who studies how robots help children with learning disabilities. ӀThey should make access to education much easier for students who are convalescing.Ԁ

Dr. MataricҀs research focuses on using robots to teach social cues to children with autism. Children adapt far more quickly to the technology than adults and treat the machine like another classmate, she says. During a fire drill at one Texas school, students were so worried about the VGo that they insisted on escorting it out of the building to safety.

The VGo is four feet tall, weighs 18 pounds and is shaped like a white chess pawn, with a video screen on its face. Lexie controls its movement with her computer mouse. Video of the classroom at Alice Drive Elementary School appears on her computer screen, and video of her face appears on the robotҀs display screen. The robot and LexieҀs computer support two-way voice communication, and Lexie can flash her VGoҀs lights to get the teacherҀs attention.

Since 2007, VGo, based in Nashua, N.H., has been selling the robots to company executives who want to keep an eye on employees while traveling and to doctors, who use it to ӀvisitԀ patients at different hospitals. Two years ago, it realized schools might be a new market. The first classroom model was sold to a school in Knox City, Tex., to be used by a child with an immune deficiency.

The companyҀs big break came during this yearҀs Super Bowl. Verizon, which provides the LTE wireless connection for the robot, ran a commercial about a student using VGo. Before the ad, VGo had sold about 10 robots to schools. Since then, they have sold about 40.

Most robots are bought with state or local money marked for disabled students, but at some schools, parents have held fund-raising events or bought the robot themselves. In Huntsville, Tex., education officials bought five VGos last year and are planning for five more next year. They named the program MorganҀs Angels after a student with cancer who missed school for six months but was able to attend remotely with the robotҀs help.

For students like Connor Flanagan, 14, of Tyngsborough, Mass., the main benefit has been social interaction. He does not go to school because of a rare lung condition, but he has stayed in touch with friends while awaiting a transplant.

ӀHe walks down the hallway kind of like everybody else,Ԁ said his mother, Jennifer Flanagan. ӀThe kids ׀ aside the fact that it was a robot ׀ they treated him like Connor. HeҀd roll through the room, and youҀd hear рHey, Connor. Hi, Connor.Ҁ Ԁ

Parents have raised privacy concerns about children using cameras in class. But Ned Semonite, the companyҀs vice president for marketing and product management, said it was no different from a smartphone or Web camera.

The greatest logistical challenge is maintaining an Internet connection. Lori Gearhart, of Colesburg, Iowa, said her grandson, Aidan Bailey, 9, was able to use the robot after his lung collapsed last year. His science class was studying insects, and Aidan kept a cocoon in his hospital room. He would show classmates videos of its transformation into a butterfly.

But other times, she said, the robot, which was bought through a community fund-raising effort for Aidan, could not receive enough of a wireless signal. ӀIt ends up where the classmates have to carry the robot down the hall,Ԁ she said.

In Sumter, Shawn Hagerty, the director of special education programs for the school district, bought a robot after seeing VerizonҀs commercial. The teachers set aside a day when students could meet and play with the robot.

LexieҀs robot has its own desk and charging station against a wall. Ivey Smith, her teacher, said the children had embraced the idea of having a robot in the class and screamed with excitement every time it turned on.

ӀI was concerned they would be distracted,Ԁ she said. ӀBut within a couple days, they acted like it had always been here. They feel special that thereҀs a robot in their class.Ԁ

On a recent day, Ms. SmithҀs class was learning about synonyms. She asked every student to think of a word with the same meaning as the word Ӏglassy.Ԁ A moment later, the robotҀs pink and green lights blinked, and the class shouted, ӀLexie!Ԁ

ӀMy word is рshiny,Ҁ Ԁ she said through the video screen.

ӀYes, very good,Ԁ the teacher replied. ӀGood answer.Ԁ

Between classes, Lexie guides the robot down the hallway. At dayҀs end, she rolls it to a charging station. On the way out of class, one child, Hazel Grace Kolb, waved goodbye to the machine.

ӀSee you tomorrow, robot,Ԁ she said.

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Incivility in the Library

Everyone knows that the library is a place of quiet study. Students and teachers alike can retreat to the library to research, study, and perhaps find a quiet table to catch a quick nap. In mid-March, however, two incidents burst into national headlines regarding student incivility in libraries. Yes libraries!

The first involved a dispute over a library study room at George Mason University.  According to the Washington Post, the study room was first occupied by Abdirashid Dahir, a Muslim student from Somalia. Dahir had left the room momentarily to get his laptop charger. When he returned, he found all of his belongings placed in the hallway and a female student occupying the room.  Both students claimed dibs on the room and during a heated exchange of words, the female student allegedly warned Dahir that if he did not leave she would get him in a lot of trouble. The female student made good on her promise, because within hours Dahir was arrested for felony abduction.

The second library incident occurred when Alexandra Wallace, a student at UCLA, posted a three-minute video on YouTube ranting on how Asian students were constantly disrupting others in the library by engaging in loud cell phone conversations. The video went on to make other disparaging and offensive comments about Asians. According to Wallace, the Ӏhordes of Asian people that UCLA acceptsԀ should use ӀAmerican manners.Ԁ

Both of these incidents drew national attention and demonstrated how incivility can get out of control. The common thread of racial tension underscores the challenges students often encounter when living, learning, and working in a diverse global community.

So what eventually happened to Dahir and Wallace? The felony abduction charges were dropped against Dahir and the abduction allegations are currently being reviewed through an internal university process.  As for Wallace, she removed her video and issued a public apology in the UCLA student newspaper.  

Incivility, or the lack of regard for others in the community, can escalate into offenses that can be far reaching. While we may rightfully disagree with anotherҀs conduct, uncivil responses rarely lead to productive outcomes.

Kent M. Weeks

Does Civility Matter?

Common civility is becoming a lost art. In our busy and complex lives, simple gestures of politeness, such as smiling or saying Ӏthank youԀ have become uncommon. We have come to expect some level of disrespect in just about every facet of our lives. People drive recklessly and without regard to others. Many engage in loud and obnoxious cell phones conversations in restaurants, buses, and movie theaters. Others deliberately litter. 

Chances are that there will always be rude, disrespectful people. So why should we be concerned about increased incivility?  IsnҀt incivility an inherent byproduct of a democratic society? After all, there is this thing called the First Amendment. Why does civility matter?

A clue to these questions can be found by probing deeper into the definition of civility. While civility is technically defined as politeness and associated with good manners, the etymology of the word hints at a more expansive meaning.

The modern English word ӀcivilityԀ comes from the Latin word ӀcivitasԀ, referring to the city or civic community. In this context, civility refers to civilized conduct of citizens. More than just politeness, the civitas element of civility calls for an individual commitment to strengthening the community, as opposed to focusing exclusively on oneҀs own wishes and desires.  Translated to a modern context, civitas includes acts of community service, such as helping a sick neighbor or serving with a volunteer organization aiding others in the community. 

Whether the community is a neighborhood, college campus, state, or country, civitas requires people to behave in a way that recognizes and respects the needs of others in the community. This more expansive application of civility is reminiscent of the Golden Rule, which encourages people to treat others in the same manner as they would want to be treated. 

As civil people, our conduct toward others should be guided by mutual respect. Conduct such as driving while intoxicated, plagiarism, and bullying would all be examples of uncivil behavior. Such conduct does not take into consideration the needs of others, and may be harmful to the community.

The growing culture of incivility is critically important because it represents more than just poor manners, but rather a lack of consideration for others. This lack of respect, left unchecked, can perpetuate incivility and can lead to even more dangerous uncivil conduct. Consider the string of Columbine-style shootings that have occurred in the high schools, colleges, and shopping malls over the last decade, including the latest in Tucson, Arizona, where a U.S. Representative was critically injured and six victims died.

Civility has once again become part of the national conversation.  Citizens, politicians, college students and scholars are opening a new dialogue, saying civility does matter.  The many voices donҀt agree on all the details of civil conduct, but the fact that theyҀre having the conversation in the first place is a start. 

Kent M. Weeks

Underserved Students and the Politics of the Practical

One thing that's bothered me for a while is how often low-income and first generation students are steered pretty hard toward "jobs" rather than "education" when it comes to college. I can't argue with the imperative to earn money and support yourself and your family after college, not to mention paying off student loans, but I worry that with all best intentions we may be developing a laboring class to the long-term detriment of American intellectual and national life. It may be better educated than earlier working classes, but it still smacks of a division between the privileged and non-privileged.

Jonathan Kozol wrote, "Childhood is not merely basic training for utilitarian adulthood. It should have some claims upon our mercy, not for its future value to the economic interests of competitive societies but for its present value as a perishable piece of life itself." His compassion for children is well-known, but what strikes me here is the phrase "utilitarian adulthood." Much is made of ensuring that students are able to get jobs when they graduate from college. That's well and good, but it seems to me that Latino, African American, and low-income/first-generation students are seen more in that "utilitarian" light than their more privileged white counterparts. Working to change that outlook is one reason I do what I do.

If you are a well-off white student from a good high school, it's relatively easy to consider a liberal arts education without thinking about post-college work. You may want to be a doctor or lawyer or CPA, but you are comfortable knowing that you can still major philosophy, anthropology or English, any of which ignite the old jokes like "What are you going to do, open a philosophy store?" as Mark Slouka writes in his Harper's essay, "Dehumanized: When math and science rule the school." But you still can afford to explore, take your time, or even think about going to graduate school to be an anthropologist or a historian because you're relatively sure you'll be employed at something after college. (Recent history aside.) You can major in theater because you know you'll eventually work for an investment bank anyway or if you do go into theater can rely on parents for support, at least for a little while. (I realize what a huge generalization that is, but I believe it's justified in contrast to underserved students' experiences.)

But first-generation kids get pushed toward the practical: Even if they're being encouraged to go to college, they're steered toward curricula that will end in a job right out of college. They're NOT steered toward the arts or history because the payoff isn't nearly the same. Most college advising programs I've seen advising low-income students emphasize the income-enhancing aspects of college attendance, not the intellectual stimuli or the opportunity to see well beyond one's own borders. Again, while I can't argue with more income, I can wish that we attended more to these students' minds instead of seeing them just as future laborers with BAs. Otherwise we risk their continued marginalization.

A young African American colleague recently told me about her own experience coming up through the Chicago school system. Although she is extremely good at math and was taking advanced courses at an early age, she was pushed to take a basketball scholarship at an obscure Florida college because she is also extremely tall. Even though she had demonstrated her brainpower, it was obscured by her height. Luckily she left her original college and transferred to one more appropriate to her talents, but my guess is that's more an exception than a rule. She was seen as a body, not as a mind; as a laborer, not as an intellectual.

One result of the emphasis on college as job preparation rather than life or even career development is that we continue to have a dearth of African American, Latino, and other artists and intellectuals from out of the mainstream. I've met many bright underserved students for whom the idea of "liberal arts" is a non-starter; they have to be sure they can make money right out of the gate so they can't waste time with "frills." It's hard to be comfortable studying Hispanic or Victorian literature when you feel the hot breath of necessity on your neck. But no one seems to have told them that they can live intellectual lives and have careers, and that's a shame.

Michael Roth's recent passionate defense of the liberal arts in the Huffington Post seems archaic in this context: "The cosmopolitanism of curricula at America' best liberal arts colleges is in tune with the wonderful diversity of student life. The thirst for experimentation, the ability to cross disciplinary or cultural borders, the scale of residential life -- all of these factors extend to learning outside the classroom and create vibrant communities that students remember and value throughout their lives." My guess it would leave a room full of low-income parents and students laughing bitterly--these ideas all sound like airy luxuries most people can't afford, and they'd be right. About the affordability, anyway.

But Roth (who is the president of Wesleyan University in CT) touches on some of the things that make higher education in the United States so vital and essential even without a direct link to jobs. He says "The key is that the students at these schools are developing skills, learning how to learn, in ways that will serve them for decades." They are the things that help make going to college worthwhile not just as preparation for one's working life but also for one's mindfulness of life in the world, including being a citizen in its widest sense. The differences between training for a  "job" and embarking on a "career" (one implies simply laboring at a task; the other implies vocation, growth, and mobility) include developing one's ability to be imaginative, to see beyond surfaces, to make connections or see patterns among seemingly disparate things, and to be flexible. Why shouldn't underserved students be able to develop these capacities the same as their better served peers?

Of course, Americans have long been suspicious of non-practical education, going back to long before the days of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. Sitting around reading just doesn't look like work (sorry, Mr. Lincoln), so what good is it? But as we move more and more into being a nation of ideas and services rather than muscular production, we need to be sure that brainpower is valued wherever it shows up. Education is a down payment on the possible: we can't know what will happen from moment to moment much less in a year or a decade. (Not to mention how many jobs will evaporate or come to be in the next few years.) All our students need encouragement to be well-educated, not just trained.

I was surprised to learn years ago that the Olympics were once confined to amateurs because that kept working class competitors out. Only the leisure class had the time and money to train for the contests, while workers had to, well, work. Colleges have been doing their best to enable "working class" students to overcome a similar barrier but current economic and social conditions are making it hard to justify college attendance as a social good in and of itself. But practicality and ratiocination (my favorite word from an undergraduate course in American literature) can coexist and even support each other. It's not an either/or situation. If we are to have a strong and multi-varied American culture now and in the future we need to create scholars, artists, and thinkers from every corner of American life. Enabling everyone who wants it to be an "amateur" for a few precious years can immeasurably expand our collective ability to live useful, thoughtful, and adaptable lives.