The teacher has no algorithm
Gemini tells him to build a spaced-repetition system and he refuses: a human teacher runs no SRS and gives no scores, they hold your whole context and make a face when they don't understand you, so the new app bets everything on the organic teacher.
// trace: where this idea came from
- ↳ video diary @ 37:27 (un profesor no tiene SRS)
- ↳ video diary @ 39:38 (nadie te da un 3 de 5 en Brasil)
- ↳ video diary @ 38:51 (Julia: lo orgánico es la diferencia)
- ↳ Entry 95-3: Pressure that isn't points (la sesión de principios que esto concluye)
The research phase ends in productive disappointment. He mines Reddit properly, search “app” inside r/languagelearning and the language subreddits, sort by comment count, feed only the threads with “app” in the title into NotebookLM ▸ 32:00, and the analysis returns a feature wishlist he already knew ▸ 32:50. His conclusion is the old product law: “la gente no sabe qué quiere; uno tiene que abstraer” ▸ 33:18.
So he abstracts, and the answer is a refusal. Sanfanson’s teacher only ever saw the current sentence ▸ 35:42; Gemini’s million-token window changes what’s possible, his entire two-month REAPRA conversation is only ~70,000 tokens ▸ 36:00. When Gemini advises a spaced-repetition system, he pushes back with the entry’s thesis: “un profesor no tiene ningún spaced repetition system; escucha a la persona hablar un poquito y ya sabe qué le hace falta” ▸ 37:27. No hardcoded intervals, no numbers: the teacher holds the context and runs the logic in its head ▸ 37:45.
Scores fall next: in Brazil nobody rated his Portuguese three out of five, they just made a face, and he tried different words ▸ 39:38; Julia proposes the app literally make caritas ▸ 39:52. Words get states instead of grades, vista, aprendiendo, memorizada ▸ 42:52, and the progress chart is allowed to fall: forget a “mastered” word in use and the AI demotes it, a stock chart instead of SRS’s dishonest ever-rising bar ▸ 43:28. Spanglish and portuñol are accepted mid-sentence, because that’s how real learners actually speak ▸ 41:19.
el SRS es una prótesis de memoria; con 1M de contexto, el profesor recuerda solo →
Julia supplies the strategy sentence: technology develops fast, humans don’t, “a los humanos les gusta lo más orgánico; ahí puede ser tu diferencia” ▸ 38:51, while Duolingo replaces its human touches with AI content. Even the business model falls out of the design: once your teacher holds months of your context, that memory is the product, and the moment to charge ▸ 42:13. Working name, pending divorce clause: Beckman, for the science teacher they both grew up on…