SoL in the Wild

All I have to say is that even if AI eventually becomes scalable and highly effective for all students, that doesn’t mean we should want it to be the teacher. Just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should.

AI may be able to deliver information, personalize instruction, assess progress, and even adapt to individual learning needs. But it cannot replace the human connection, empathy, intuition, encouragement, mentorship, and genuine relationships that make education so much more than the transfer of knowledge. It cannot truly know a child, recognize what they need beyond an academic skill, or understand the impact of simply having an adult who believes in them.

And don’t tell me that we can just have AI do the teaching while human adults serve as guides on the side, supporting and motivating students. Teachers are not guides. Teachers teach. They make content human, relatable, meaningful, and accessible from one living being to another. They bring the intuition, empathy, humor, relationships, and genuine human connection that make teaching so much more than delivering information. That’s something AI can never truly replicate or scale.

And that’s not about job security. It’s about preserving whatever small piece of humanity we can in education in the years ahead. Because education should always be about more than what a student can learn from a machine. It should also be about who they become through the people who teach them. Learning is a human process, and we shouldn’t lose sight of that in our rush to automate it.

When somebody says teachers need to be the guide on the side, not the sage on the stage.

Today’s new installment of How to Get Students to Think Meaningfully About Factual Information: Odd One Out! A simple routine to get students thinking more deeply about new facts and details, making connections, and strengthening their encoding into long-term memory because memory is the residue of thought! They will be more likely to remember what they meaningfully think about.

What if some of the things we blindly celebrate about teaching, like spontaneity, improvisation, thinking on your feet, can sometimes get in the way of good instruction?

We rarely question those instincts. We’re much quicker to question scripts, worrying that they make teachers robotic, limit responsiveness, and strip away professional judgment. Why are we so willing to scrutinize the potential costs of scripting but so reluctant to scrutinize the costs of teaching without one?

I spent a week teaching from a script for the first time in my career, and it made me reconsider both sides of the script debate. ⬇️🔗

I have taught Claude well…🫠