We’ve heard the boos. We’ve seen the backlash. We’ve heard the pleas of graduates looking for entry level work. We all know the vision of an AI future because we’re experiencing it in real time.
Our youth are living through a Catch-22. The contradictory messaging about AI is astounding. One day we hear about the greatness that is AI. Another day we’re reading reports that AI is taking all the jobs. Is AI drinking all the water or using all the electricity or both? Our learning environments are no better. A child may enter one classroom with a teacher that embraces AI and another classroom where the teacher bans it. At some point, this superposition of AI states has to collapse into one reality, right?
Nope. So wrong.
And we wonder why our young people are yelling into the void for humanity.
I’m often asked my thoughts on the future of education. As someone who spent the better part of eight years studying AI implementation and integration into K-12 learning environments, people are often surprised that my answer doesn’t mention AI at all.
The future of education is thinking.
Our society has turned into such a two-sided system that there’s no room for nuance. There’s no room to consider different pathways that may end in varied answers. There’s only yes or no, right or wrong, win or loss, AI or no AI.
Though I hesitate to speak for our youth, I can imagine what they might consider looking at the current landscape.
Inconsistent guidelines on AI usage across sectors
Environmental and financial concerns from data centers
Safety and privacy issues
Job insecurity
Who’s leaning into that?
While an experienced worker may be upskilling to maintain their position, a new worker may not even get past the resume stage because an applicant tracking system has deemed them unworthy.
Yeah, I’d be booing, too.
Young people are reacting to a world that keeps handing them contradictions and then acting surprised when certainty fails them.
Imagine a world where thinking was the currency instead of information, where the ability to consider all the things became more valuable than simply knowing what to do next or how to profit from it.
That is the pivot education has to make.
For years, school has often treated thinking as the path to the answer. The world our youth are entering does not hand them a simple problem with one possible solution. This world is full of contradictions, where something useful is at the same time dangerous, and where something empowering can also be exclusionary. Information comes at such a fast pace that tools can produce answers before people have had time to decide whether the question is worth asking.
So, when I say the future of education is thinking, I don’t mean thinking as a buzzword. I mean the disciplined, human work of noticing complexity, asking better questions, weighing consequences, recognizing tradeoffs, and challenging assumptions. Building better thinkers means preparing children to live in uncertainty without being consumed by it.
As someone who actually believes in AI, my hope is that we can begin to find meaning in the nuance instead of rushing toward certainty. I want our kids to understand the complexity of this moment, too. If we say AI is the future, we leave them without options. We need them to think with AI and beyond AI.
The next question I’m often asked is, “Where do I start?” My answer is simple: Ask a young person how they feel about AI.
Be prepared for the truth.
It may not be what you think.
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