The Greatest Gift to the Future: Part II

Last month, we left you with a quote: “No matter what lies ahead,” said Fred Rogers, “children always need to know that they are loved and capable of loving. Anything that adults can do to help in this discovery will be our greatest gift to the future.”

It’s a quote that can help to guide us, we think, in a time of fast-changing technology and a permeating sense of uncertainty. The world outside our windows can look different every day. How comforting that the goal remains the same.

With this orientation, nearly everything becomes a tool that might be deployed or discarded in service of that goal. We can move beyond blanket, binary judgments – i.e. this thing is good or this thing is bad – and instead ask with curiosity: “Can this thing, in this context, help me provide an expression of care for kids?”

If the answer is yes, then the tool might be worth exploring.

If the answer is no – or if a tool’s trade-offs start to outweigh its benefits – then we can comfortably leave it behind.

Throughout his career, we saw Fred Rogers ask and answer this question in various ways. When it came to television, remember, his initial response was disgust. But he also wondered whether the medium might – when deliberately and intentionally programmed – help him give what he sought to offer.

Sometimes, the answer was yes. For millions of people, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood was more than a television program – it was a gift they’d carry long into the future.

Other times, the answer was no. The medium didn’t always have the best interests of young people in mind. (“I’m very much concerned, as I know you are, about what’s being delivered to our children in this country,” Fred told the Senate in 1969.) To that end, he developed his own set of guardrails: He resisted advertising, refusing to compromise children’s trust for commercial gain. He insisted on honesty to the tiniest detail. And he wasn’t afraid to take his medium to task:

Today, adults in schools and beyond are doing the same, wondering when – and whether – AI is the right tool for the job. For them, too, their answers depend on context, and sometimes change by the day. (Or even more frequently than that.) On one hand, some hope AI will make more time for human connection. On the other, concerns abound about the technology’s risks to the environment, to student privacy, and to skills like critical thinking and creativity.

No one we interviewed claimed definitive answers. But it’s heartening to see so many adults thinking carefully about what’s available, what’s useful, and what might serve our ultimate aim: helping kids discover their capacities and worth.

Here are some of the ways AI might help us do that.

Improving Our Own Practice

At the South Fayette Township School District, superintendent Michelle Miller says her team is experimenting with a tool called Teach FX, which can help teachers fine-tune their face-to-face teaching. Teachers use Teach FX to audio record themselves teaching a lesson, then ask: How might I improve my communication with students? How effectively am I helping my students think critically? And what’s my ratio of “teacher talk time” to “student talk time”?

Making Learning Spaces More Inclusive

While attending the recent AI Horizons conference, Mary Catherine Reljac, superintendent of the Fox Chapel Area School District, heard a session on AI-enabled automatic translation. “I thought immediately how that could help our students who are learning English,” she says. With this tech, “that language barrier is easier to overcome while they are learning their new language and adapting in a new environment.”

Helping Learners Evaluate Information

In an age of AI-generated imagery that can yield life-like deepfakes – and the fact that tools like ChatGPT don’t always offer accurate or unbiased information – the ability to determine what’s true has never been more important. That’s why students at the Butler Area School District will be learning to fact-check AI by getting out into the community and searching public records at municipal buildings. Along with developing research and critical thinking skills, young people will interact with civil servants and community leaders, gaining firsthand knowledge of how local government works.

Exploring Other Perspectives

A common concern about AI chatbots is that they create a “frictionless relationship,” says Michelle Culver, founder of the Rithm Project. “You’re constantly getting practice at being told you’re right, and that’s just not how human relationships work. And so it atrophies our ability to hold some of the expansiveness that is required in actual human relationships, when people have their own needs and they disagree.”

At the same time, however, Culver sees educators encouraging kids to actively work on their ability to handle disagreement by framing it as a strength – one that students can grow and protect. “You can train a model to play out perspectives different from your own,” she says, by telling a generative AI platform, “Here’s my current thinking. What am I missing? Poke three holes in my argument. Help me consider it from different vantage points.”

As learners come to value constructive conflict – and as they see adults helping them build that skill – “They know that they have that [ability] inside them,” says Culver, and “they can be strategic about deploying the AI tool to support that.”

Reviving Tried-and-True Pedagogy

Along with inspiring a return to handwritten essays in class, tools like ChatGPT have revived a classic method of ensuring student learning. “People are now shifting almost back to the old-school Greek philosophy of having to defend your ideas,” says Lance Lindauer, executive director of the Partnership to Advance Responsible Technology.

When you’re asked to stand up in front of your classroom or meet one-on-one with a teacher to talk about what you’re learning, “you can’t hide behind AI,” he explains. In some ways, that’s led to instructional design that relies on face-to-face connection: recording podcasts, participating in debates, and presenting live talks. (This can also help students and teachers better understand each other’s values and hopes.)

Wondering About What Works – Together

Despite some early promise, plenty of questions remain. At South Fayette, “We’re going to be taking the year and wrestling with what’s working, looking at what works in some departments and doesn’t work in other departments, because this is not a cookie-cutter approach,” says Miller.

Joe Yun, director of artificial intelligence enablement at the University of Pittsburgh, shared a similar sentiment: “I don’t think anybody will claim to have figured this out from an educational standpoint,” he says.

Still, it’s worth keeping that great gift to the future in mind.

“I think that was the magic of Fred Rogers,” says Yun. “He made every single person feel intimately cared for, even through the television screen. And so I think there’s an answer somewhere in there.”

Freelance writer Melissa Rayworth, who serves as executive editor at Kidsburgh.org, contributed reporting.