From Rizal to GPT to education
Public education, as we know it, took shape in the early 19th century when learning was finally extended to the masses. A historian kibitzer friend once quipped that this shift created the “classroom education” system we still use today, which is currently threatened by artificial intelligence (AI).
Yet more than a century ago, Dr. José Rizal—physician, polymath, and Philippine national hero—quietly built his own version of modern schooling while exiled in Dapitan from 1892 to 1896. Sixteen boys attended his informal academy, where lessons in reading, writing, and arithmetic were free; “ … students engaged in gardening, farming, and construction projects within the community,” wrote Gregorio F. Zaide, a prolific and influential Filipino historian of the 20th century.
Probably as a voracious reader, and without intending to, Rizal initiated a “school” model of his own—organized learning grounded in mastery and apprenticeship.
Modern. For most of human history, education meant pairing an apprentice with a highly knowledgeable master (likely the same path walked by virtuoso like Michelangelo as they learned their art). The master taught essential processes one-on-one, tailoring instruction to the learner’s needs. However, later discovered extraordinarily effective—but extraordinarily expensive.
Modern schooling replaced individualized mastery with mass instruction, trading depth for scale.
But today, some argue that a “highly knowledgeable master” has reappeared—this time in digital form. Sam Altman’s release of Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) technology, quipped one AI-savvy friend, may have opened an “Elysium Box of learning” that could finally solve education’s oldest problem: how to teach everyone as effectively as a master teaches one.
In 1984, educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom demonstrated that students receiving one-on-one tutoring performed two standard deviations better than those in traditional classrooms.
Aristotle understood this well. When he founded the Lyceum in 335 BCE, he taught through dialogue, inquiry, and personalized guidance. Could modern AI bring us back to the learning method Aristotle championed 2,360 years ago?
GPT may be the closest attempt yet. It is defined an artificial neural network capable of generating natural language by processing vast amounts of data. GPT models are “trained by funneling data from copious amounts of text, photos, and patterns sourced from various places such as websites, books, news articles, social media posts, ad media posts, and virtually everything available on the internet.” Despite the misleading “neural” terminology, GPT does not think like a brain; it predicts patterns using silicon circuits, not bioelectrochemical neurons. Still, its ability to synthesize information is unprecedented.
GPT can answer questions, analyze complex data, write and edit text, generate software code, and engage in natural conversation. It can break down intricate topics into digestible explanations—something even expert teachers struggle to do consistently. It is available online, at almost no cost, to anyone with a phone or laptop. As one angler kibitzer friend joked, “It is like catching any fish of your choice in the open ocean.”
This democratizes learning in a way Bloom could only imagine. Anyone can study any subject, anytime, anywhere—self-guided, personalized, and instantaneous. GPT does not replace teachers, but it does replicate aspects of one-on-one mastery learning at a scale never before possible.
Of course, GPT is not infallible. It can “hallucinate,” producing responses that sound plausible but lack factual basis, so we are cautioned repeatedly by experts. Understanding the difference between hallucination, illusion, and delusion may well become a new literacy requirement in the AI age, especially from the perspective of psychophysiology as we know it today, quipped an alter-ego kibitzer friend.
Still, the implications for education are profound. Some educational institutions may evolve into mere testing and certification hubs, validating what individuals learn independently through AI. Others may serve as identity verification centers, ensuring that the person presenting knowledge is, indeed, a real human—much like the DMV or SSA to confirm legal identity, another kibitzer friend quips.
If Rizal and Aristotle were handed smartphones in heaven today, they might marvel at how GPT resurrects their ancient pedagogy: personalized learning, dialogue, inquiry, and mastery—now delivered through silicon rather than scrolls or chalk.
And perhaps, after watching earthlings debate the future of education, one of them might send a single text message: LOL.
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Dr. Aggie Carson-Arenas is a quasi-retired mental health provider based in Las Vegas, Nevada, and a former university research director and associate professor.
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