AI
Every time someone panics about AI in schools, I think: this is not a new crisis. It's an old one wearing new clothes.
The conversation around AI and education tends to go one of two ways. Either AI is going to destroy learning as we know it, students will never write another essay again, critical thinking is dead, the essay mill has won. Or AI is going to save education, personalised learning for every student, infinite patience, available at 3am when no teacher is.
Both of these conversations are missing the point. AI is not the plot twist in education. It is a mirror, and what it is showing us is a reflection we have been avoiding for a long time.
“If a language model can replace what you are asking students to do, you were probably asking them to do the wrong thing.”
What AI actually threatens
AI threatens the kind of teaching that was never really teaching in the first place. The assignment that asked students to summarise information they could find in a textbook. The essay that rewarded structure and length over genuine thinking. The assessment that measured compliance and output rather than understanding and growth.
These were always weak proxies for learning. We used them because they were scalable and easy to mark. AI has not broken them. It has revealed that they were already broken.
What AI cannot replace
- The relationship between a teacher who believes in a student and a student who starts to believe in themselves
- The moment a classroom finds something genuinely funny together
- The teacher who notices a student is not okay before the student has the words for it
- The adult who holds high expectations for a child when no one else will
- The daily experience of being known, of mattering, of belonging somewhere
Those things are not threatened by AI. They are, if anything, more valuable now than they have ever been, precisely because they are the things that cannot be automated.
The teachers who are panicking about AI are, in most cases, brilliant educators who will be fine. The systems that are panicking about AI are, in most cases, systems that were mistaking compliance for learning. That is the conversation worth having.
AI
A note on accuracy:While every effort has been made to ensure the information in this article is accurate at the time of writing, facts, policies and research can change. We're human, and sometimes we get things wrong. If you spot something that needs updating, we'd genuinely love to hear from you.
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Dave Harrison
ESW · Neurodiversity Advocate · Podcast Host
Dave Harrison is currently working in Australian schools as an Education Support Worker. He's the founder of THRVHUB, host of the Different Is Normal podcast, and a parent of a neurodivergent teenager, writing from both sides of the classroom.
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