The Superteacher Project

Uber-prolific author Gordon Korman, who published his 100th book in 2022 (an early start helps—Korman’s first novel was released by Scholastic when he was 14) has a knack for crafting spirited, amiable page-turners for young readers. He’s also cracked the code for remaining relatable—the kids in his stories never seem behind the times, even though Korman’s been at this for more than four decades. Now, in a tale that could hardly be more of-the-moment, comes The Superteacher Project, a romp of a story that features not only the typically breezy Korman-esque charm but, of perhaps more interest, an AI-powered robot teacher dropped into a typical American middle school. Things are certain to go smoothly, we can be sure.

The novel’s premise is clear enough: staid Brightling Middle School, selected to host a hush-hush experiment undertaken by the U.S. Department of Education (students and parents have not been apprised), finds itself welcoming on-staff Mr. Rob Aidact, a robot indistinguishable in appearance from a human.

Oddities proliferate. Aidact plucks a whizzing spitball out of the air almost before the bell has stopped ringing on his first morning, he talks to students as if he studied elocution with Mr. Spock, he seems never to eat lunch or let water touch his lips, and he’s somehow qualified to teach algebra, French, history, English, and P.E. He’s also unusually fit, dangerously strong, and even somewhat on the handsome side (one student’s divorced mother develops an inconvenient crush on him). “It’s pretty obvious Mr. Aidact isn’t your average middle school teacher,” observes prankster Oliver Zahn, the school’s self-proclaimed “number one rule-wrecker” as well as a seventh-grader partial to understatement.

Brightling’s other teachers, who are in on the secret, quickly recognize that Aidact’s tireless and uncomplaining ways might be exploited. In short order, the robot teacher is pulling everything from lunch duty to detention hall supervision, and it seems he’ll pass the year as a humorless enigma to his students and a drone for his fellow teachers.

But a funny thing happens: because he assimilates so much input—as AI robot teachers will—Aidact steadily transmutes his initial stiffness and becomes the most popular teacher in the building. “Legit,” “wack,” and “dope,” enter his conversational rotation, and his ability to produce the lyrics to any song or dispense trivia on demand proves endlessly fascinating. He’s unconventional, unflappable, and fun; the students love him, and Brightling’s staff is glad for his can-do presence.

When the school’s principal needs a coach for the girls’ field hockey team, Aidact steps forward (he wins the position after the principal asks him what he knows about the sport and—in what could pass for robot humor—he responds: “I know everything about it.”). Though his coaching proves more theoretical then practical, his enthusiasm for the game and his bottomless support for his players doesn’t just win them over—it inspires them. Plenty of other Brightling students feel the same—detention hall booms in popularity as students jockey to spend time in Aidact’s energizing presence.

When the experiment inevitably goes haywire, it’s an open question if the goodwill Aidact has built up will see him through. We are left to ask if a creature such as Aidact ought to be shunned or welcomed, if he should be judged by the cables and screws he’s made of or by the impact he makes, if it ought to matter what he is rather than what he does. Korman poses these questions lightly, but it seems clear the story asks us what to make of a lab creation who seems—to many of the students, at least—more human than most adults.

“When does a machine start to be a real person?” one character asks late in the story. “Mr. Aidact cares about people.” The exploration of Aidact’s possible humanity is a narrow path for Korman to navigate, given that the book’s central character has only a borrowed personality—is essentially devoid of any actual character. Still, it’s easy to find Aidact as likable as Brightling’s students do. “He’s a piece of technology,” one of them says, “but when you’re face-to-face with him, that’s not how it feels.” Give Korman a seat at the front of the class.