will technology replace teachers?

Paul the Pre-industrial Poet asks me one day, "Techno-Tommy, do you think teachers will ever be replaced by technology?"

"I've considered this concept before.  I'm doubtful of it. Nothing will change.  Not for decades.  Not for centuries, really."

"You mean with all the phonographs and the motion picture improving and the telegraph and everything, you still think that, a century from now we'll have classes of thirty students in a warehouse style school?"

"Technology will only accelerate it.  Schools began as a way to educate citizens and then they morphed into a place to house urban kids while parents worked in the factories.  Parenting is hard, man, really hard.  I have days when I hate it."

"So you're saying that as long as we have parents working and essentially getting free babysitting we'll have teachers."  

"Yes, I guess so.  Don't get me wrong, I value education and my role as a teacher.  It's just that the primary role of a teacher is socialization.  No one says it outright.  We talk about learning to read and yes, that's true.  But on some level, schools raise kids while parents work."  

"I can see your point.  But I think some day we'll have robots replacing teachers.  They'll be underpaid and over-worked and the people in charge will program them."  

"So you think the folks in charge will choose robots instead of people like us?"

"No, I think the robots will be people like us."